Rebel fighters holds weapons at the Citadel of Aleppo, after Syrian rebels announced that they have ousted Bashar al-Assad, in Aleppo, Syria, Dec. 9, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Karam al-Masri

The Biden administration is seeking ways to engage with Syrian rebel groups who ousted President Bashar al-Assad and is reaching out to partners in the region such as Turkey to help kick start informal diplomacy.

Speaking at a State Department briefing, spokesperson Matthew Miller said Washington had a number of ways of communicating with various groups, one of which Washington has designated a terrorist organization.

“We have been engaging in those conversations over the past few days. Secretary himself has been engaged in conversations with countries that have influence inside Syria, and we’ll continue to do that,” Miller said.

Governments across the region as well as in the Western world are scrambling to forge new links with Syria’s leading rebel faction Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a group formerly allied with Al Qaeda and which is designated a terrorist organization by the US, European Union, Turkey, and the UN.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has been working the phones and speaking with regional leaders and has twice over the past four days spoken with Hakan Fidan, the foreign minister of Turkey, Miller said.

Turkey has troops on the ground in northwest Syria, and provides support to some of the rebels who were intending to take part, including the Syrian National Army (SNA) — though it considers HTS to be a terror group.

When asked if the United States was looking to engage with HTS leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, better known as Abu Mohammed al-Golani himself, Miller declined to say but he did not rule it out either.

“We believe we have the ability to communicate one way or the other, directly or indirectly, with all the relevant parties,” Miller said.

The US designated Golani a terrorist in 2013, saying al Qaeda in Iraq had tasked him with overthrowing Assad‘s rule and establishing Islamic sharia law in Syria, and that Nusra had carried out suicide attacks that killed civilians and espoused a violent sectarian vision.

In one of the biggest turning points for the Middle East in generations, the fall of Assad‘s government on Sunday wiped out a bastion from which Iran and Russia exercised influence across the Arab world. Assad fled to Russia, after 13 years of civil war and more than 50 years of his family’s rule.

US President Joe Biden and his top aides described the moment as one with historic opportunity for the Syrian people who have for decades lived under the oppressive rule of Assad but also warned the country faced a period of risk and uncertainty.

Syria policy under the Biden administration over the past four years had largely taken a backseat as Washington chose to view the civil war as a dormant issue and more pressing issues such as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the eruption of Gaza war have consumed much of the bandwidth.

Over the past decade, HTS, previously known as the Nusra Front, has tried to moderate its image, while running a quasi-state centered on Idlib, where, experts say, it levied taxes on commercial activities and the population.

The group was “saying the right things” at this stage but that it was too early to say what was going to happen in Syria, a senior US official briefing reporters on Sunday said.

US Hostage affairs envoy Roger Carstens was also in the region in Beirut as part of intensive efforts to locate Austin Tice, an American journalist captured in Syria 12 years ago.

The post US Seeking Ways to Engage With Syrian Rebel Groups After Assad Ouster first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

Gebran Bassil, a Christian member of parliament and former minister gestures as he speaks during an interview with Reuters in Sin-el-fil, Lebanon, Oct. 13, 2022. Photo: REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir

Iran-backed Hezbollah needs to focus on domestic issues in Lebanon and not the wider region, senior Lebanese Maronite politician Gebran Bassil said on Tuesday, adding that he was against the head of the army running for the presidency.

A year of fighting between the Lebanese terrorist organization Hezbollah and Israel, which culminated in a tentative ceasefire brokered by the United States and France in November, saw more than 4,000 killed, thousands displaced, and the powerful Shi’ite group considerably weakened militarily with many of its leaders dead.

“It’s a process whereby Hezbollah accepts that they are part of the Lebanese state and are not parallel to the state,” Bassil, a Maronite Christian, who is one of Lebanon‘s most influential politicians, told Reuters in an interview in Paris.

“We don’t want their end. We want them to be partners in the Lebanese nation, equal to us in abiding by the rules and preserving the sovereignty of Lebanon. We agree with them on defending Lebanon and supporting the Palestinian cause, but politically and diplomatically, not militarily.”

Bassil, who said the group should distance itself from the Iran-aligned “Axis of Resistance,” is head of the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM), a Christian party founded by former President Michel Aoun, his father-in-law, that has been aligned with Hezbollah.

He was sanctioned by the United States in 2020 for alleged corruption and material support to Hezbollah. He denies the accusations.

He was in Paris meeting French officials. He declined to say whether he met Donald Trump’s regional envoy and fellow Maronite Massad Boulos, who accompanied the US president-elect to France last weekend.

Since the truce, Paris has increased efforts to discuss with the myriad key actors in Lebanon over how to break a political impasse after two years without a president or permanent government.

The presidential post is reserved for Christians, but part of the standoff reflects rivalries among the community as well as crucial political and religious balances in the country.

Authorities finally announced that the parliament would meet on Jan. 9 to elect a new president.

Bassil, who has enough lawmakers to block a Maronite candidate, said he was against the candidacy of Joseph Aoun, the head of the army, who diplomats say both the United States and France consider as a serious candidate.

He said Aoun’s appointment would be against the constitution and that he did not have consensus among all the Lebanese factions.

“We are against him because we don’t see him as being fit for the presidency,” Bassil said. “We need candidates who can bring the Lebanese together,” he said declining to name one.

The post Hezbollah Must Focus on Lebanon, Not Wider Region, Senior Politician Bassil Says first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

Israeli soldiers operate in a location given as southern Syria, in this screengrab from a video obtained by Reuters on Dec. 9, 2024. Photo: Israel Defense Forces/Handout via REUTERS

JNS.org — The Israel Defense Forces has conducted 300 strikes in Syria since Sunday’s ouster of Bashar Assad, Israeli media reported on Tuesday, marking the heaviest air campaign in the country since the 1973 Yom Kippur War.

Israel’s Ynet news outlet cited Western intelligence sources late Monday night as confirming the figure, saying that the aerial assault is mainly targeting air force bases, including entire squadrons of fighter jets.

It is believed that the Syrian Air Force could be destroyed in its entirety “within a few days,” Ynet noted, which would substantially reduce the threat posed to the Jewish state by the incoming Syrian government.

The last time Israel destroyed an entire air force was in 1967, when the Egyptian Air Force was wiped out in the first hours of the Six-Day War.

Local security sources told Reuters on Monday that the Israeli Air Force had attacked at least three army bases that housed dozens of helicopters and jets in the largest wave of strikes on the Syrian Air Force since Assad was toppled.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a London-based war monitor with links to the Syrian opposition, was cited by AFPas confirming that Israel carried out more than 100 strikes on Monday, including on a suspected chemical weapons production site. The IDF did not immediately comment on the strikes.

Early on Tuesday morning, AFP and Al Jazeera reported loud blasts in Damascus, with the latter outlet attributing the explosions to Israel.

On Sunday, Syrian President Bashar Assad fled Damascus as a coalition of rebel groups stormed the capital, ending his family’s five-decade rule.

“The tyrant Bashar Assad has been overthrown,” a rebel spokesperson declared in a statement carried on state television on Sunday morning.

On Monday, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar confirmed that the IAF had struck sites used to produce chemical weapons and long-range missiles in an attempt to prevent them from falling into hostile hands.

“We attacked strategic weapons systems, like for example remaining chemical weapons, or long-range missiles and rockets, in order that they will not fall in the hands of extremists,” Sa’ar told the Associated Press.

“The only interest we have is the security of Israel and its citizens,” he reiterated in his remarks to the wire agency. The top diplomat did not provide details about when or where the airstrikes were conducted.

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said earlier on Monday morning that he had ordered the continued destruction by the IDF of strategic weapons that were previously held by the Syrian regime and Iranian-backed militias, to prevent their falling into the hands of terrorist groups.

Among the arms taken out by the IDF were “surface-to-air missiles, air defense systems, surface-to-surface missiles, cruise missiles, long-range rockets, and coast-to-sea missiles,” the Defense Ministry stated.

Katz has also ordered the military to set up a secure area free of strategic weapons and terror infrastructure inside Syrian territory, beyond the buffer zone on the Israel-Syria border. The 210th “Bashan” Division began proactive operations on Sunday to ensure “the protection of the residents of the Golan Heights in light of the internal events in Syria,” the IDF said.

Katz said he had also instructed the military to establish full control over the once-demilitarized buffer zone in the Golan, which was established under the 1974 Disengagement of Forces Agreement between Damascus and Jerusalem that ended the Yom Kippur War.

According to Lebanon’s Al Mayadeen outlet, which is closely affiliated with the Iranian-backed Hezbollah terror organization, IDF tanks have reached positions 3 kilometers (1.8 miles) from the town of Qatana, which is located some 20 kilometers (12 miles) from the outskirts of Damascus.

Three security sources, one in Syria and two in the region, confirmed the report, telling Reuters on Tuesday that IDF soldiers had reached Qatana.

An IDF spokesperson denied the reports later on Tuesday, telling Reuters that Israeli ground forces “have not left the buffer zone.”

Jerusalem reportedly informed the United States that its activities in Syria constitute “temporary and tactical operations” to protect civilians in its north. A US government source signaled Washingtons approval for the move in a conversation with Israel’s Kan News broadcaster, saying that “no nation can tolerate terror groups on its doorstep.”

“Since the Syrian army abandoned its positions in and around the Israeli-Syrian buffer zone, Israel has declared that Syria’s enforcement of the 1974 ceasefire agreement has collapsed. Israel has taken temporary measures to stabilize the buffer zone and prevent an invasion of Israeli territory,” the American source told the Israeli public broadcaster.

“We hope that, in the future, we will see the area return to stability,” added the source.

Two sources familiar with the details of the conversations told Kan News that Jerusalem had informed the Biden administration of its intention to take control of the Syrian part of Mount Hermon and the buffer zones. Washington has not expressed public opposition to the moves.

The post IDF Hit More Than 300 Syrian Regime Targets in Two Days, ‘Effectively Wiping Out Air Force’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.