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New Iran-Backed Group Emerges in Syria to Confront Israel
Khaled Brigade, a part of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), hold a military parade, after Syria’s Bashar al-Assad was ousted, in Damascus, Syria, Dec. 27, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh
An armed organization calling itself the “Islamic Resistance Front in Syria” has demanded that Israeli forces withdraw from southern Syria and the demilitarized zone in the Golan Heights, claiming responsibility for several recent attacks against the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
The Iran-backed group, formerly known as the “Southern Liberation Front,” has emerged as a new force to oppose Israel, which borders Syria’s southern region. On Tuesday, the nascent militant organization announced that it has become a permanent front aimed at countering attempts at “division and displacement.”
According to its statement, the “resistance” group seeks to be a “unifying force for all segments of Syrian society,” regardless of religion, while prioritizing the protection of the country’s security and territorial integrity, Iraqi-based Shafaq News reported.
The group said its formation was a response to “the systematic and coordinated Zionist-Turkish-American transfer plan, backed by Arab support, to divide Syria following the end of the era of the resistant and defiant Syrian regime [of long-time Syrian President Bashar al-Assad], which had been the backbone of all resistance and liberation movements worldwide from 1970 until the end of 2024.”
“The front emerged from the Syrian people to confront any attempts to undermine the country’s security, amid the absence of the political and social forces that previously governed Syria,” the statement read.
In late January, Ahmed al-Sharaa became Damascus’s transitional president after leading a rebel campaign that ousted Assad, whose Iran-backed rule had strained ties with the Arab world during the nearly 14-year Syrian war.
The collapse of Assad’s regime was the result of an offensive spearheaded by Sharaa’s Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group, a former al-Qaeda affiliate.
Part of the Iranian-led “Axis of Resistance” against Israel and US influence in the region, the Islamic Resistance Front in Syria is the religious extension of the battle of “the promise of the Hereafter,” a reference to a Quranic verse that has been interpreted as the final battle to “liberate Palestine,” according to Ahmad Sharawi and Joe Truzman of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), a Washington, DC-based think tank.
“The establishment of The Islamic Resistance Front in Syria is still in its infancy, and it’s unclear how the group is structured, what other armed organizations have joined its cause, and if it is a legitimate threat to Israeli troops operating on the Syrian border,” Sharawi and Truzman explained in the Long War Journal, an FDD publication.
In its statement, the group said its goal is “to restore the nation’s glory and protect it from terrorism and occupation,” while calling on Syrians to unite and stand against oppression.
“This step is a natural and legitimate response to the attempts at division and displacement facing the country,” the group’s general commander was quoted as saying in the announcement.
The statement was accompanied by a logo resembling those of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Iranian regime’s chief proxy, the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah, featuring a raised hand holding a rifle.
According to Alma, an Israeli research and education center, the Syrian National Socialist Party (SNSP) issued an official statement last year announcing the establishment of the Southern Liberation Front. However, at the beginning of this year, the group’s name was changed to the Islamic Resistance Front in Syria.
First published on the party’s website and social media platforms, the SNSP stated that the organization was established to protect the Syrian people and drive Israel out of Syrian territory. The SNSP also criticized Israel’s presence and activities in the country (referred to in the statement as “the Israeli enemy” and “the Israeli occupation”), as well as the silence from both Damascus’s new government and the broader Arab world on the issue.
Following Assad’s fall in December, Israel moved troops into a buffer zone along the Syrian border to secure a military position to prevent terrorists from launching attacks against the Jewish state. The previously demilitarized zone in the Golan Heights was established under the 1974 Disengagement of Forces Agreement between Damascus and Jerusalem that ended the Yom Kippur War. However, Israel considered the agreement void after the collapse of Assad’s regime.
Syria’s new government has called for Israel to withdraw its forces but has used a noticeably less hostile tone than Iran or its proxies when speaking about the Jewish state.
Last month, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel would not tolerate the presence of HTS or any forces affiliated with Syria’s new rulers south of Damascus and demanded the area be demilitarized.
During a recent meeting in Brussels of the EU-Israel Association Council, which oversees the European bloc’s relationship with the Jewish state, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar dismissed any hope for real change in Syria despite the formation of a new government, calling for “realistic expectations” in Europe and labeling talks of regime transition as “ridiculous.”
The Islamic Resistance Front in Syria’s announcement came as a top Hezbollah official admitted this week that the collapse of Assad’s regime in Syria was “a major strategic loss” that weakens the terrorist group’s efforts against Israel.
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Iran, US Task Experts to Design Framework for a Nuclear Deal, Tehran Says
Atomic symbol and USA and Iranian flags are seen in this illustration taken, September 8, 2022. Photo: REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
Iran and the United States agreed on Saturday to task experts to start drawing up a framework for a potential nuclear deal, Iran’s foreign minister said, after a second round of talks following President Donald Trump’s threat of military action.
At their second indirect meeting in a week, Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi negotiated for almost four hours in Rome with Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, through an Omani official who shuttled messages between them.
Trump, who abandoned a 2015 nuclear pact between Tehran and world powers during his first term in 2018, has threatened to attack Iran unless it reaches a new deal swiftly that would prevent it from developing a nuclear weapon.
Iran, which says its nuclear program is peaceful, says it is willing to discuss limited curbs to its atomic work in return for lifting international sanctions.
Speaking on state TV after the talks, Araqchi described them as useful and conducted in a constructive atmosphere.
“We were able to make some progress on a number of principles and goals, and ultimately reached a better understanding,” he said.
“It was agreed that negotiations will continue and move into the next phase, in which expert-level meetings will begin on Wednesday in Oman. The experts will have the opportunity to start designing a framework for an agreement.”
The top negotiators would meet again in Oman next Saturday to “review the experts’ work and assess how closely it aligns with the principles of a potential agreement,” he added.
Echoing cautious comments last week from Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, he added: “We cannot say for certain that we are optimistic. We are acting very cautiously. There is no reason either to be overly pessimistic.”
There was no immediate comment from the US side following the talks. Trump told reporters on Friday: “I’m for stopping Iran, very simply, from having a nuclear weapon. They can’t have a nuclear weapon. I want Iran to be great and prosperous and terrific.”
Washington’s ally Israel, which opposed the 2015 agreement with Iran that Trump abandoned in 2018, has not ruled out an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities in the coming months, according to an Israeli official and two other people familiar with the matter.
Since 2019, Iran has breached and far surpassed the 2015 deal’s limits on its uranium enrichment, producing stocks far above what the West says is necessary for a civilian energy program.
A senior Iranian official, who described Iran’s negotiating position on condition of anonymity on Friday, listed its red lines as never agreeing to dismantle its uranium enriching centrifuges, halt enrichment altogether or reduce its enriched uranium stockpile below levels agreed in the 2015 deal.
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Hamas Says Fate of US-Israeli Hostage Unknown After Guard Killed in Israel Strike
Varda Ben Baruch, the grandmother of Edan Alexander, 19, an Israeli army volunteer kidnapped by Hamas, attends a special Kabbalat Shabbat ceremony with families of other hostages, in Herzliya, Israel October 27, 2023 REUTERS/Kuba Stezycki
Hamas said on Saturday the fate of an Israeli dual national soldier believed to be the last US citizen held alive in Gaza was unknown, after the body of one of the guards who had been holding him was found killed by an Israeli strike.
A month after Israel abandoned the ceasefire with the resumption of intensive strikes across the breadth of Gaza, Israel was intensifying its attacks.
President Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff said in March that freeing Edan Alexander, a 21-year-old New Jersey native who was serving in the Israeli army when he was captured during the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks that precipitated the war, was a “top priority.” His release was at the center of talks held between Hamas leaders and US negotiator Adam Boehler last month.
Hamas had said on Tuesday that it had lost contact with the militants holding Alexander after their location was hit in an Israeli attack. On Saturday it said the body of one of the guards had been recovered.
“The fate of the prisoner and the rest of the captors remains unknown,” said Hamas armed wing Al-Qassam Brigades’ spokesperson Abu Ubaida.
“We are trying to protect all the hostages and preserve their lives … but their lives are in danger because of the criminal bombings by the enemy’s army,” Abu Ubaida said.
The Israeli military did not respond to a Reuters request for comment.
Hamas released 38 hostages under the ceasefire that began on January 19. Fifty-nine are still believed to be held in Gaza, fewer than half of them still alive.
Israel put Gaza under a total blockade in March and restarted its assault on March 18 after talks failed to extend the ceasefire. Hamas says it will free remaining hostages only under an agreement that permanently ends the war; Israel says it will agree only to a temporary pause.
On Friday, the Israeli military said it hit about 40 targets across the enclave over the past day. The military on Saturday announced that a 35-year-old soldier had died in combat in Gaza.
NETANYAHU STATEMENT
Late on Thursday Khalil Al-Hayya, Hamas’ Gaza chief, said the movement was willing to swap all remaining 59 hostages for Palestinians jailed in Israel in return for an end to the war and reconstruction of Gaza.
He dismissed an Israeli offer, which includes a demand that Hamas lay down its arms, as imposing “impossible conditions.”
Israel has not responded formally to Al-Hayya’s comments, but ministers have said repeatedly that Hamas must be disarmed completely and can play no role in the future governance of Gaza. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is scheduled to give a statement later on Saturday.
Hamas on Saturday also released an undated and edited video of Israeli hostage Elkana Bohbot. Hamas has released several videos over the course of the war of hostages begging to be released. Israeli officials have dismissed past videos as propaganda.
After the video was released, Bohbot’s family said in a statement that they were “deeply shocked and devastated,” and expressed concern for his mental and physical condition.
“How much longer will he be expected to wait and ‘stay strong’?” the family asked, urging for all of the 59 hostages who are still held in Gaza to be brought home.
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Oman’s Sultan to Meet Putin in Moscow After Iran-US Talks
FILE PHOTO: Sultan Haitham bin Tariq al-Said gives a speech after being sworn in before the royal family council in Muscat, Oman January 11, 2020. Photo: REUTERS/Sultan Al Hasani/File Photo
Oman’s Sultan Haitham bin Tariq al-Said is set to visit Moscow on Monday, days after the start of a round of Muscat-mediated nuclear talks between the US and Iran.
The sultan will hold talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday, the Kremlin said.
Iran and the US started a new round of nuclear talks in Rome on Saturday to resolve their decades-long standoff over Tehran’s atomic aims, under the shadow of President Donald Trump’s threat to unleash military action if diplomacy fails.
Ahead of Saturday’s talks, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi met his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in Moscow. Following the meeting, Lavrov said Russia was “ready to assist, mediate and play any role that will be beneficial to Iran and the USA.”
Moscow has played a role in Iran’s nuclear negotiations in the past as a veto-wielding U.N. Security Council member and signatory to an earlier deal that Trump abandoned during his first term in 2018.
The sultan’s meetings in Moscow visit will focus on cooperation on regional and global issues, the Omani state news agency and the Kremlin said, without providing further detail.
The two leaders are also expected to discuss trade and economic ties, the Kremlin added.
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