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Recent Appearances... Rantburg

Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Justice Ministry says NGO linked to Ra’am party gave funds to terror-supporting groups
2025-07-15
[IsraelTimes] Report finds ‘Aid 48’ NGO, linked to Mansour Abbas’s Islamist party, sent money to West Bank charities proscribed by Defense Ministry; bereaved families group wants criminal probe

The Justice Ministry, in a letter from July 7 that was published on Monday, said it found grounds to dissolve the "Aid 48" association, a nonprofit connected to the Islamist Ra’am party, having concluded an investigation over alleged money transfers to groups proscribed for terror links.

"From the association’s records and its responses to requests for information, it appears that the association transferred funds or collaborated with organizations outside Israel, that were declared terror organizations, or are suspected of being linked to terror organizations," the ministry’s Israeli Corporations Authority said in the letter.

"This document should be seen as a warning before initiating liquidation proceedings against the association," the 22-page document concluded.

Aid 48 transferred funds to four organizations purporting to do charity work in the Nablus, Ramallah, and Tulkarem areas of the West Bank that were proscribed by the Defense Ministry in 2008 and 2002, according to the ministry.

The investigation into the group came after pressure from the "Choose Life" Forum, representing bereaved families, which opposed the Ra’am party’s inclusion in former prime minister Naftali Bennett’s coalition, labeling the party "terror supporters."

The forum welcomed the decision to dismantle Aid 48, calling it "a historic victory" and demanded that Ra’am’s leaders — such as MK Mansour Abbas — be "detained for questioning," asserting that "anyone who supported Hamas
..not a terrorist organization, even though it kidnaps people, holds hostages, and tries to negotiate by executing them,...
leading up to October 7 must be sent to prison," in a quote carried by Hebrew media.

Though declaredly an Islamist, Abbas has courted controversy among his base by stating that Israel will always be a Jewish state and condemning Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, calling on Paleostinian terror groups to demilitarize.

In a statement in April, when the Justice Ministry first announced its findings, Ra’am blamed the Netanyahu government for funding Hamas and accused it of seeking to divert attention from its own mistakes.

"Since the negotiations on the possible entry of Ra’am into the [previous] coalition began, an ongoing and vicious campaign has been waged against us by extreme right-wing elements, aiming to thwart any chance for the political integration of Arab citizens in the country," it said at the time.

This is done on the back of a humanitarian aid organization that operates with the knowledge and cooperation of all authorized entities in the country. We have no doubt that the organization will prove it acted lawfully."

At the time, Aid 48 itself called the investigation a "campaign of persecution for a clear political goal of thwarting any possibility of a political partnership between Arabs and Jews."
Link


Good Morning
2025-07-15



'Disturbing pattern' of Secret Service 'failures' exposed in new report on Trump's Butler assassination attempt
Tuesday 07/15/2025

Mary Jones, aka Alar the Human Arrow
International-UN-NGOs
Three members of UN commission investigating
Israel resign amid Trump crackdown
Africa Subsaharan
Nigeria jails 44 people for
involvement in Boko Haram terrorism
Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Two French intelligence agencies did
not share Lebanon and 'burned' their own agents
Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia
FSB burns 530 kg of cocaine worth over 1 billion rubles
Africa Horn
Somalia: Al Shabaab militants
have seized Tardo in central Hiiran region
Europe
In Copenhagen, Denmark, a fight broke out between Islamist migrants trying to convert people and a gay Chinese tourist
Syria says wildfires in Latakia
province contained after 10 days

Link


Europe
In Copenhagen, Denmark, a fight broke out between Islamist migrants trying to convert people and a gay Chinese tourist
2025-07-15
[PUBLISH.TWITTER]
Link


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
IDF seizes 3 tons of arms from ex-Assad regime sites; violence flares in southern Syria: 30 toes up, HTS vows to intervene
2025-07-14
[IsraelTimes] Troops locate explosives, rockets at ‘key’ commando bases in operation aimed at keeping arms from being smuggled to Lebanon; deadly clashes break out in Druze area

Israeli troops found more than three tons of weapons while raiding military facilities inside Syria. The sites had been maintained by the deposed Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad
Trampler of Homs...
regime, the Israel Defense Forces said Sunday.

In the raids, which took place over the past week, reservists of the 810th Mountain Regional Brigade located at the peak of Mount Hermon, inside Syria, searched several "key headquarters" formerly belonging to the Assad regime’s commando forces, the IDF said.

The weapons found by troops included anti-tank mines, bombs, and rockets.

The IDF said its operations in the area were intended to prevent weapon smuggling into Leb
...The Lebs maintain a precarious sectarian balance among Shiites, Sunnis, and about a dozen flavors of Christians, plus Armenians, Georgians, and who knows what else?...
from Syria.

Israeli troops have carried out a number of raids inside Syria in recent weeks, mostly targeting alleged members of Iran-sponsored cells stationed near the Golan frontier.

The military has also carried out Arclight airstrike
...KABOOM!...
s aimed at keeping Syrian weapons from falling into the hands of the Islamists who ousted Assad late last year.

The raids were announced as deadly sectarian violence flared in Druze areas of the Syrian side of the Golan, which Israel has previously acted to protect from Islamists.

Clashes broke out between Bedouin tribes and local fighters in the predominantly Druze city of Sweida on Sunday, with the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reporting 18 killed in the fighting, including 14 Druze and four Bedouin.

Local outlet Sweida 24 gave a preliminary toll of 10 people killed and 50 maimed across both sides.

The outlet also reported the closure of the Damascus-Sweida highway due to the violence.

The government sent forces to de-escalate the situation.

Sweida Governor Mustapha al-Bakur called on his constituents to "exercise self-restraint and respond to national calls for reform."

Several Syrian Druze spiritual leaders have also called for calm and asked Damascus to intervene.

In April and May, festivities between the new government’s security forces and Druze fighters killed dozens of people, with local leaders and religious figures signing agreements to contain the escalation and better integrate Druze fighters into the new government.

During those festivities, Israel carried out a dronezap on an gang preparing to attack a Druze community near Damascus, and Defense Minister Israel Katz told troops to be prepared to act in Syria in defense of the Druze. Katz and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a message to Syria at the time that Israel "expects it to act to prevent harm to the Druze."

Following the December overthrow of Assad, Syria’s longtime ruler, Israel sent troops into the United Nations
...a formerly good idea gone bad...
-patrolled buffer zone that separated opposing forces on the strategic Golan Heights, from which it had conducted forays into southern Syria.

Troops have been operating in areas up to around 15 kilometers (9.3 miles) into Syria, aiming to capture weapons that Israel says could pose a threat to the country if they fall into the hands of "hostile forces."

Immediately after Assad’s ouster, Israel also carried out hundreds of airstrikes in Syria to prevent key military assets from coming under the control of the administration headed by Sharaa.

Officials from Syria and Israel have held discussions over that military presence in recent weeks, and, in June, a senior Israeli official said the sides were in "advanced talks" to end hostilities, even as Jerusalem has taken a cautious approach toward the country’s new Islamist leadership.

The two countries have formally been in a state of war since Israel’s establishment in 1948, and last fought a major conflict in the 1973 Yom Kippur War.

A meeting this past weekend in Azerbaijan between Syrian and Israeli officials was reportedly to focus on the IDF presence in Syria. Sharaa, who was in Baku, the capital, to discuss energy cooperation with Azerbaijani leaders, did not attend the meeting with the Israelis.

In addition, on Sunday, the Syrian Interior Ministry announced that it had arrested a Hezbollah operative who was planning terrorist attacks. Hezbollah, the Lebanese terror group that is sworn to Israel’s destruction, was a chief ally of Assad’s regime.

The ministry named the operative as Mahmoud Fadl, saying he was in possession of ready-to-use explosives that he intended to deploy for terrorist attacks in the area. According to the statement, Fadl belonged to a Hezbollah cell that was active in Syria.

Damascus vows to intervene as at least 30 killed in armed clashes in Druze city of Sweida

[IsraelTimes] At least 30 people have been killed and 100 injured in a preliminary count in armed clashes between local military groups and tribes in Syria’s predominantly Druze city of Sweida, Syria’s interior ministry says.

The ministry says that its forces will directly intervene to resolve the conflict and halt the clashes.
Link


Europe
All Palestinians in Gaza Are Eligible for Asylum in France, Court Rules
2025-07-13
[Breitbart] All Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip will be eligible for the first time to apply for asylum in France, a court ruled on Friday.

Deciding on a case brought by a Palestinian mother seeking asylum in the wake of the Islamist Hamas October 7th terror attacks on Israel, France’s National Court of Asylum (CNDA) ruled in her favour given the “war methods” of the Israeli Defence Forces in Gaza, which the court found were “serious enough to be regarded as methods of persecution.”

The decision overturned a previous rejection from the French Office for the Protection of Refugees and Stateless Effrusion (OFPRA) in November, which noted that the Palestinian woman was not specifically being “persecuted” and therefore could only be eligible for “subsidiary protection”, a lesser form of asylum which only allows for a four-year temporary residence permit rather than the ten years of protection guaranteed to refugees.

The case paved the way for the CNDA to declare that all Palestinians living in Gaza should be entitled to asylum protection in France, Le Figaro reports. The court based its decision on the Geneva Convention, which says that people who face “persecution for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion,” should be considered refugees.

The court specifically cited the supposed persecution based on “nationality” faced by Palestinians in Gaza, despite France, like most other nations, not recognising Palestine as a state.

Nevertheless, the judges said that they possessed the “characteristics” of a nationality, which according to the Convention include belonging to a “group determined by its cultural, ethnic or linguistic identity, common geographical or political origins or its relationship with the population of another state.”

While the ruling is novel in declaring such “persecution” of Palestinians, legal experts noted that it would likely only impact around 20 per cent of the population of Gaza, given that 80 per cent were already classified as being refugees by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) and were therefore already eligible for protection in France.

Although the ruling was hailed by leftist groups such as Amnesty International, others expressed concern about allowing more Palestinians into France, including a former Muslim turned anti-Islamist activist and female rights campaigner, Henda Ayari.

“While France is already grappling with explosive community tensions, it chooses today to unconditionally welcome refugees from Gaza, even though more than 30 Muslim countries refuse to take them in. Why should France, once again, play the role of humanitarian substitute while others categorically refuse to host these populations in their countries?” she questioned.

“We’re talking about a region where Hamas recruits, where Islamist ideology and anti-Semitic, anti-Western hatred are deeply rooted, where many celebrated the massacres of October 7. We cannot pretend to believe that they are all ‘innocent victims.’ Some of these individuals who will arrive in France may have participated in, supported, or condoned terrorism. And tomorrow? They will be housed, fed, and supported at the expense of French taxpayers… while our retirees are dying and our neighbourhoods are exploding,” Ayari lamented.
Link


Good Morning
2025-07-13



The Most Explosive Story You Haven't Heard:
Netanyahu, Trump, and the Fight Behind the Front Lines
Sunday 07/13/2025

JeanetteMacDonald
Home Front: WoT
Hadeeqa Arzoo Malik, a radical Islamist Hamas supporter, was suspended from the City University of New York (CUNY) for spreading antisemitism
-Lurid Crime Tales-
3 illegal aliens just arrested in McClain Oklahoma for cutting and stealing 3,600 feet of copper coaxial lines
Home Front: WoT
Update on Thursday's operation
at the marijuana facility in California
Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Sheikh Naim Qassem General Secretary of Hezbollah affirming that the resistance has no surrender choice, it's either victory or martyrdom
Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Syrian and Israeli officials will meet
in Baku, according to a diplomatic source in Damascus
Africa Subsaharan
DR Congo: Ongoing clashes between M23 rebels and local defense groups in Bwito, Rutshuru continue to fuel a growing humanitarian crisis
Americans have claimed to have
seen UFOs more than 2,000 times in six months

Link


Home Front: WoT
Hadeeqa Arzoo Malik, a radical Islamist Hamas supporter, was suspended from the City University of New York (CUNY) for spreading antisemitism
2025-07-13
[PUBLISH.TWITTER]
Link


Africa Subsaharan
ISIS-aligned rebels kill 66 civilians in eastern Congo
2025-07-13
[IsraelTimes] Rebels affiliated with the Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems....
group killed 66 people in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo
...formerly the Congo Free State, Belgian Congo, Zaire, and who knows what else, not to be confused with the Brazzaville Congo aka Republic of Congo, which is much smaller and much more (for Africa) stable. DRC gave the world Patrice Lumumba and Joseph Mobutu, followed by years of tedious civil war. Its principle industry seems to be the production of corpses. With a population of about 74 million it has lots of raw material...
, local officials say.

Fighters with the Allied Democratic Forces
...established in the early 1990s through an agreement between portions of Uganda’s Salaf Tabliq Islamic sect and the National Army for the Liberation of Uganda (NALU), who said they had been sidelined by Museveni’s policies. At the time, the rebels staged deadly attacks in Ugandan villages and the capital, including a 1998 attack in which 80 students were massacred. A Ugandan military operation later forced the ADF into eastern Congo. The ADF has since established ties with the Islamic State group. The ADF has received funding from the Government of Sudan, which has also provided supplies and training. The ADF may also have received funding from the illegal mining and logging industries of the DRC....
(ADF), which has ties to ISIS, killed civilians in the area of Irumu in the east of the country bordering Uganda.

The attack comes as eastern Congo may see an end to its ongoing war with M23, a separate rebel group which is backed by Rwanda, another of Congo’s neighbors.

The ADF is a Ugandan Islamist group that operates on both sides of the mostly non-existent border.

All the victims, including women, were killed with machetes, says the president of a local civil society, Marcel Paluku. The number of people taken hostage is unknown.

The attack is suspected to be in response to an escalating bombing campaign by joint Congolese and Ugandan forces that started on Sunday.
Related:
Democratic Republic of the Congo: 2025-07-05 Fragile peace in Eastern DRC as M23 reacts cautiously to Kinshasa-Kigali acccord
Democratic Republic of the Congo: 2025-06-21 Trump brokers Rwanda-Congo treaty as Pakistan nominates him for Nobel
Democratic Republic of the Congo: 2025-05-31 Regional leaders back Sudan peace roadmap, condemn El Fasher siege
Related:
Allied Democratic Forces: 2025-02-23 70 Christians Beheaded in DRC and Mainstream Media Is Nowhere to Be Found
Allied Democratic Forces: 2025-01-28 Al-Shabaab and ISIS suspects among 37 Arrested in Multi-Nation East Africa Operation
Allied Democratic Forces: 2024-08-24 Escalating crisis in the Democratic Republic of Congo
Link


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
UN report sees no active ties between al-Qaeda and Islamist group led by Syria’s Sharaa
2025-07-13
[IsraelTimes] Despite Russian and Chinese skepticism, finding could bolster US bid to lift sanctions on new regime, which is led by the former al-Qaeda affiliate that ousted Assad in December

United Nations
...a lucrative dumping ground for the relatives of dictators and party hacks...
sanctions monitors have seen no "active ties" this year between al-Qaeda and the Islamist group leading Syria’s interim government, an unpublished UN report said, a finding that could strengthen an expected US push for removing UN sanctions on Syria.

The report, seen by Rooters on Thursday, is likely to be published this month.

Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, formerly al-Nusra, before that it was called something else
...al-Qaeda's Syrian affiliate, from which sprang the Islamic State...
is al-Qaeda’s former branch in Syria but broke ties in 2016. The group, previously known as al-Nusra
...formally Jabhat an-Nusrah li-Ahli al-Sham (Support Front for the People of the Levant), also known as al-Qaeda in the Levant. They aim to establish a pan-Arab caliphate. Not the same one as the Islamic State, though .. ...
Front, led the rebellion that toppled Syrian President Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad
Lord of the Baath...
in a lightning offensive in December, and HTS leader Ahmed al-Sharaa became Syria’s interim president.

The report comes as diplomats expect the United States to seek the removal of US sanctions on HTS and Sharaa, who has said he wants to build an inclusive Syria with equal rights for all.

"Many tactical-level individuals hold more extreme views than ... Sharaa and Interior Minister Anas Khattab, who are generally regarded as more pragmatic than ideological," the UN report said. It covered the six months to June 22 and relied on contributions and assessments from UN member states.

Since May 2014, HTS has been subject to UN sanctions including a global assets freeze and arms embargo. A number of HTS members also face sanctions like a travel ban and asset freeze — including Sharaa, who has been listed since July 2013.

The UN monitors wrote in their report to the US Security Council: "Some member states raised concerns that several HTS and aligned members, especially those in tactical roles or integrated into the new Syrian army, remained ideologically tied to al-Qaeda."

US President Donald Trump
...Never got invited to a P.Diddy party...
announced a major US policy shift in May when he said he would lift US sanctions on Syria. He signed an executive order enacting this at the end of June, and Washington revoked its foreign terrorist organization designation of HTS this week.

The US said then that revoking the designation was a step towards Trump’s vision of a peaceful and unified Syria.

Washington is "reviewing our remaining terrorist designations related to HTS and Syria and their placement on the UN sanctions list," a US State Department spokesperson told Rooters.

Diplomats, humanitarian organizations and regional analysts have said lifting sanctions would help rebuild Syria’s shattered economy, steer the country away from authoritarianism and reduce the appeal of radical groups.

Trump and his advisers have argued that doing so would also serve US interests by opening opportunities for American businesses, countering Iranian and Russian influence and potentially limiting the call for US military involvement in the region.

Trump said this week that many countries, including Israel, had requested that Washington lift the sanctions on Syria, though reports to date have indicated that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was caught off guard by the White House’s decision to end the sanctions.

Israel had been taking a much harder stance on Syria, with Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar and Defense Minister Israel Katz initially branding Sharaa a "terrorist in a suit."

Following Assad’s ouster, Israel also moved troops into the Syrian side of the two countries’ agreed-upon demilitarized buffer zone, and carried out massive strikes on military infrastructure there, citing fear they would fall into the wrong hands.

As the US policy on Syria continued to warm in recent weeks, Israel has abandoned its harsh rhetoric against Sharaa.

Last month, Sa’ar said Israel would like to normalize relations with Sharaa’s Syria, among others, and Israeli officials have confirmed holding direct talks with the regime. However,
by candlelight every wench is handsome...
Syrian state media said this month that it was "premature" to discuss a peace deal with Israel.

Israel and Syria have been officially at war since 1948, when Israel was established.

OBSTACLES TO US EFFORTS
Washington faces diplomatic obstacles to get the support of the UN Security Council to lift the sanctions on Syria. The US will also need to win support from Russia — which was an ally to Assad — and China for any Syria sanctions relief at the UN, diplomats said.

China and Russia are particularly concerned about foreigners who joined HTS during the 13-year war between rebel groups and Assad. The UN experts said there were estimated to be more than 5,000 imported muscle in Syria.

The status of imported muscle has been one of the most fraught issues hindering Syria’s rapprochement with the West. But the US has given its blessing to a plan by Syria’s new leaders to integrate imported muscle into the army.

"China is gravely concerned about such developments. The Syrian interim authorities should earnestly fulfill their counter-terrorism obligations," China’s UN Ambassador Fu Cong told the Security Council last month.

He said Syria must combat terrorist organizations including "the Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement, also known as the Turkistan Islamic Party." Uyghur fighters from China and Central Asia are members of the Turkistan Islamic Party. Rights groups accuse Beijing of widespread abuses of the mainly Moslem ethnic minority.

Russia’s UN Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia told the Security Council last month that it was essential Syria’s "army and police are staffed exclusively by professional personnel with untainted track records," apparently referring to irregular fighters from various militias.

The UN monitors said some imported muscle rejected the move to integrate them into the military. "Defections occurred among those who see Sharaa as a sell-out, raising the risk of internal conflict and making Sharaa a potential target," the UN experts said.
Link


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Qassem denies divisions within Hezbollah, says group ''has recovered'' — Naharnet
2025-07-10
[NAHARNET] Hezbollah "has recovered and is now ready" to confront Israel in case of an attack on Leb
...The Lebs maintain a precarious sectarian balance among Shiites, Sunnis, and about a dozen flavors of Christians, plus Armenians, Georgians, and who knows what else?...
, the group's leader Sheikh Naim Qassem
... the Grand Vizier of the Hezbullies...
said in a televised interview.

The interview was recorded on June 11 but only broadcast Tuesday on Lebanese pan-Arabist news channel al-Mayadeen.

Qassem said that President Joseph Aoun is being "very pressured" by the U.S. and other Arab countries to disarm Hezbollah by all means, even by force. "But he knows this would lead to strife and would not be fruitful," Qassem told journalist and director of al-Mayadeen Ghassan Bin Jeddo.

"Lebanon is strong because of Hezbollah's weapons and we will not accept that Lebanon becomes weak," Qassem said, adding that the medium and heavy arms that have been destroyed during the war with Israel are south of the Litani River, in a hint that Hezbollah has weapons in other regions across the country.

Qassem denied internal divisions within Hezbollah. "Usually, when there are wings, you can see them, right? Because they fly... I haven't seen any wings yet," he sarcastically said.

Two months of full-fledged war with Israel last fall dealt heavy blows to Hezbollah, with its longtime leader Sayyed
...Arabic term meaning your/his lordship. Groveling in His Exalted Presence is encouraged...
His Eminence Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah
...The late, lamented satrap of the Medes and the Persians in Leb...>
killed in a September Israeli Arclight airstrike
...KABOOM!...
. Hezbollah also lost a strategic ally when Islamist-led rebels ousted longtime Syrian ruler Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad
Despoiler of Deraa...
.

"Hezbollah communicated with the Lebanese army when problems occurred in the Hermel area" on the Lebanese-Syrian border, Qassem told Bin Jeddo. "There were gunnies trying to enter Lebanese territory but Hezbollah was not involved and we have no intention of fighting them so we communicated with the army."
Link


Africa North
Tunisia sentences prominent opposition leader to 14 years in prison
2025-07-10
[AFRICANEWS] A Tunisian court on Tuesday sentenced one of the country's most prominent opposition leaders to 14 years in prison, adding to a string of convictions that he received in other cases.

Rached Ghannouchi, the leader of Tunisia's Ennahda movement, was among those sentenced as part of a sweeping case in which politicians were charged with conspiring against state security. Several other detained members of his party were sentenced to 12 years.

Ghannouchi's party rose to power after Tunisia became the first country in the region to oust a longtime dictator as part of the Arab Spring. He later served as speaker of the country's assembly and is among the opposition figures who have faced prosecution since President Kais Saied took power six years ago.

His defence team denied the charges and said in a statement that the proceedings didn't meet the standards of a fair trial.

''All accusations were based on a false and contradictory testimony by a secret, anonymous witness who failed to present any evidence for his baseless and contradictory allegations, and who ultimately retracted most of them,'' attorneys said in a statement.

The judge overseeing the case issued arrest warrants for several party members tried in absentia, including Ghannouchi's son and a former foreign minister.

The defendants faced charges including participating in an organization linked to terrorist acts, inciting violence, attempting to overthrow the government, and recruiting and training individuals for terrorist purposes both within Tunisia and abroad.

Ghannouchi, 86, is facing charges in several other cases and refuses to appear before courts he considers politically manipulated. He has already served multiple prison sentences totalling more than 20 years, notably for money laundering.

His lawyers denounce what they call ''unjustified judicial harassment'' by the authorities and are calling for the release of imprisoned Islamist leaders.
Related:
Rached Ghannouchi 08/18/2024 In Kais Saied's Tunisia, an election with few opponents
Rached Ghannouchi 02/21/2024 Tunisia: Opposition leader Ghannouchi begins hunger strike in prison
Rached Ghannouchi 10/05/2023 Tunisia: Opposition leader Abir Moussi arrested

Related:
Kais Saied 04/21/2025 Tunisia opposition figures get jail terms in mass trial; defense pans ‘masquerade’
Kais Saied 10/20/2024 60.1% of Migrants Reaching Italy Departed from Libya
Kais Saied 10/09/2024 Tunisia’s President Saied wins second term in landslide victory

Related:
Ennahda: 2024-08-18 In Kais Saied's Tunisia, an election with few opponents
Ennahda: 2024-02-21 Tunisia: Opposition leader Ghannouchi begins hunger strike in prison
Ennahda: 2023-07-26 Protests in Tunisia mark two years since presidential power grab
Link


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
For 2nd time in days, IDF says troops arrested terror cell in Syria working for Iran ​
2025-07-08
[IsraelTimes] Military says forces captured several members of IRGC-linked terror cell; UK-based war monitor says IDF raided a village in the Quneitra countryside and detained two brothers

For the second time in days, the IDF said Monday morning that it carried out an overnight raid in southern Syria, where forces captured a cell of operatives operating on behalf of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Reservists of the Alexandroni Brigade and field interrogators of the Military Intelligence Directorate’s Unit 504 operated overnight in the Kwdana area — close to the border and near an IDF post in southern Syria — to detain the cell, the military said.

Several members of the cell who the IDF said were operating on behalf of the IRGC were nabbed.

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said Israeli forces raided a village in the Quneitra countryside of southern Syria early Monday and "carried out searches targeting several homes, which ended with the arrest of two brothers."

On Wednesday, Israel’s military said its forces had apprehended members of an Iranian-backed terrorist cell in southern Syria and seized weapons.

Since Assad’s fall, Israel has carried out strikes and raids in Syria aimed at denying military assets to the Islamist-led interim administration.

Israel has said it is interested in striking normalization agreements with Syria and neighboring Leb
...The Lebs maintain a precarious sectarian balance among Shiites, Sunnis, and about a dozen flavors of Christians, plus Armenians, Georgians, and who knows what else?...
, but insisted the strategic Golan Heights — which Israel captured from Syria in 1967 and later annexed — would remain part of Israel under any peace accord.

The two countries are currently engaged in "advanced talks" to end official hostilities and resolve the buffer zone issue, a senior Israeli official told The Times of Israel last week.

The contacts are focused on coordination around security matters, said the official, who would not speculate on when a full peace deal between the two enemy states could turn into reality.

The neighboring states have been in conflict for decades, including direct and often bitter combat from the 1948 War of Independence through the 1982 First Lebanon War.
Link



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