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US-Backed Group Fights Syrian Army as Reignited Conflict Spreads
Smoke billows near residential buildings in a picture taken from a drone in Aleppo, Syria, Dec. 3, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Hasano
Fighters from a US–backed, Kurdish-led coalition battled Syrian government forces in northeastern Syria early on Tuesday, both sides said, opening a new front for President Bashar al-Assad who lost Aleppo in a sudden rebel advance last week.
Airstrikes also targeted Iran-backed militia groups supporting Syrian government forces in the strategically vital region, a security source in eastern Syria and a Syrian army source said.
The sources both blamed the airstrikes on the US-led military coalition which operates against Islamic State in Syria and has a small detachment of American troops on the ground. Reuters could not independently confirm the foreign force was involved in strikes and the coalition did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment.
The fighting around a cluster of villages across the Euphrates river from regional capital Deir al-Zor complicates the military picture for Assad, whose forces were focused overnight on staunching a renewed rebel assault near Hama.
Last week’s rebel assault that captured Aleppo — Syria’s largest city before the war — is the biggest offensive for years in a conflict whose frontlines had been frozen since 2020.
Residents of Aleppo said there were already shortages in the city days after its capture. Reuters photographs showed long, chaotic queues for bread. “There’s no bread. The ovens are closed. The queues are getting longer,” said Mohammed Taha, 35.
Fuel supplies were also restricted and petrol station owner Mohammed Aatro said taxi drivers had hiked their prices in response. “We’re coming to winter and most of the gas stations aren’t working,” he said.
Ahrar al-Sham, a major Islamist faction, said in a video message the situation would stabilize and urged fighters to show discipline inside the city.
The heaviest fighting on Monday and Tuesday was along the frontline just north of Hama, another major Syrian city, where several villages have changed hands repeatedly over recent days.
An operations room for the rebel offensive and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a war monitoring group, said on Tuesday rebels had again captured those villages. Two opposition sources said the rebels were making gains in the Hama countryside.
Russian warplanes have intensified airstrikes against rebels alongside government jets over recent days, both sides have said. Syrian state media reported Syrian and Russian strikes in the northern Hama countryside. Rescue workers reported strikes targeting hospitals in Aleppo and Idlib causing civilian deaths.
Any sustained escalation in Syria risks further destabilizing a region already alight from wars in Gaza and Lebanon, where a truce between Israel and the Hezbollah terrorist group took effect last week.
The Syrian civil war that began in 2011 killed hundreds of thousands of people, drew in major powers, and sent millions of refugees across international borders. Assad has had the upper hand since receiving backing from Russia and Iran a decade ago, but that support has been challenged by devastating losses Israel inflicted on Iran’s Hezbollah allies over the past two months.
JOCKEYING FOR TERRITORY
The retreat by Assad’s forces over the past several days has led to jockeying for control among other groups that control pockets in the northwest, north and east.
The Syrian Democratic Forces, an umbrella group which controls territory in Syria’s east with US support, said early on Tuesday that its Deir al-Zor Military Council had “become responsible for protecting” seven villages previously held by the Syrian army.
The Deir al-Zor Military Council comprises local Arab fighters under the SDF, an alliance mainly led by a Kurdish militia, the YPG.
Syrian state media reported that the army and allied forces were repelling an SDF assault on the villages, the only Syrian government presence along the east bank of the Euphrates river, an area otherwise mostly held by the SDF.
A Syrian military officer said the SDF push was aimed at exploiting government forces’ weakness after the rebel advance, and said the army and allied Iran-backed militia groups were sending reinforcements.
CROWDED BATTLEFIELD
A return of fighting to northeastern Syria, where the United States, Russia, Iran, and Turkey are all involved, underscores the messy global politics at play in the conflict and the dangers of escalation in a potentially crowded battlefield.
Iran said late on Monday there would be a foreign ministers meeting with Turkey and Russia in Doha next weekend as part of a diplomatic process used to stabilize borders earlier in the conflict.
The SDF was the main Western-backed ground force in eastern Syria fighting Islamic State, which ran a jihadist mini-state there from 2014-2017. Turkey says the SDF’s main fighting force, the YPG, are Kurdish separatists it regards as terrorists, and sent troops across the frontier in 2017 to push them back.
Rebel advances in recent days have dislodged the YPG from areas it still held in and near Aleppo, including Aleppo’s Sheikh Maqsoud district and a corridor around Tel Refaat to the north.
The SDF presence in northeastern Syria along much of the border with Iraq also complicates supply lines for Iran-backed regional militia groups supporting Assad. On Monday Reuters reported that hundreds of Iran-backed Iraqi fighters had crossed the border into Syria to help government forces.
Israel has also regularly struck Iran-backed forces in Syria. Syrian state media reported that an Israeli drone had targeted a vehicle near Damascus. Israel’s military said it does not comment on reports in foreign media.
The post US-Backed Group Fights Syrian Army as Reignited Conflict Spreads first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Boston University Has Stood Up to Antisemitism, But It Must Do More
Boston University College of Arts and Sciences. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.
Boston University (BU)’s Board of Trustees showed moral courage on February 11, when it rejected two petitions calling for BU to divest from the State of Israel. In doing so, the Board refused to bow down to the demands of those who seek to end the existence of the world’s only Jewish state.
“The endowment is no longer the vehicle for political debate,” BU President Melissa L. Gilliam declared. BU must now remain firm against the demagogic pressure of the pro-Hamas groups that continue to push the genocidal goal of destroying Israel.
Earlier this month, Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), which openly praises Hamas and championed the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre, ran a sham referendum at BU calling for the divestment of university funds from Israel.
BU’s SJP chapter created the referendum internally and had the Young Democratic Socialists of America administer the vote. The referendum made a mockery of the student government process by not requiring voters to use their BU emails, effectively permitting off-campus participation, and it also did not prevent voters from voting multiple times. Ultimately, the BU Student Government, known as “StuGov,” announced the “nullification” of the referendum’s results.
However, the campaign to demonize Israel at BU does not end with this vote. StuGov has already announced that it plans to hold an additional vote. Instead of explicitly mentioning Israel, the referendum says “companies actively complicit in human rights violations in the Middle East.” This edit is a smokescreen to hide their true intentions and the antisemitism that is raging at BU.
On February 19, StuGov posted a link to a referendum on divesting from Israel. Voting commenced immediately and will run through February 26. This time, instead of being hosted under the auspices of radical outside organizations, it has the apparent imprimatur of the students’ elected representatives themselves — even though the Board of Trustees has already rejected the politicization of the endowment.
Divestment campaigns against Israel on campus have the consistent effect of exacerbating antisemitism at universities, according to the Center for Modern Jewish Studies at Brandeis University. According to one report, antisemitism has surged on college campuses, increasing by 700% from 2022 to 2023.
As a February 3 open letter from BU Hillel rightly pointed out, the school’s student government ignored the internationally accepted International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism by considering the anti-Israel resolution. The IHRA definition includes nine examples of contemporary antisemitism, like “Applying double standards by requiring of [Israel] a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.” Demanding that Israel fail to defend itself after an armed invasion by a terrorist group that massacred 1,200 people, and raped and mutilated civilian women easily meets that standard.
In the run-up to the new referendum, BU SJP touted its anti-Israel posture with the infamous symbol of the inverted red triangle. Nazi Germany originated the symbol to designate political prisoners held in concentration camps. Using that symbol to call for the murder of Jews in 2025 is an offense that cannot go unpunished.
BU’s Board of Trustees has taken the correct stand in removing its endowment from the crossfire of Middle East politics. Now, BU can do even more by ensuring that no further flawed referenda jeopardize the safety and inclusion of the Jewish minority on campus.
BU must continue to champion open dialogue, protect every member of its community, and ensure that its investments reflect principle, not politicization.
Guy Starr is a sophomore studying Accounting and Finance at Boston University. He is the current co-President of Boston University Students for Israel.
The post Boston University Has Stood Up to Antisemitism, But It Must Do More first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Hamas Members Suspected of Plotting Attacks Go on Trial in Germany
View of the courtroom as Judge Doris Husch presides over a trial for defendants accused of acting as foreign operatives for the Hamas terrorist group in Europe, in Berlin, Germany, Feb. 25, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Fabrizio Bensch
Four Hamas members suspected of plotting attacks on Jewish institutions in Europe went on trial in Berlin on Tuesday, in what prosecutors described as the first court case against terrorists of the Islamist group in Germany.
The Hamas members were detained in late 2023 on suspicion of planning attacks, German prosecutors said at the time.
“For the first time in Germany, suspects are facing charges of having participated as members of the foreign terrorist organization Hamas,” prosecutor Jochen Weingarten told Reuters.
He added the defendants were accused of seeking to locate a secret weapons depot in Poland for possible attacks, while receiving orders from the deputy commander of the Qassam Brigades in Lebanon.
According to previous statements by prosecutors, the defendants are also accused of operating other weapons caches in Europe.
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Israel Looks to Extend Phase One of Gaza Truce as Long-Term Deal Proves Elusive
Israeli military jeeps maneuver in Gaza, amid a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel, as seen from the Israeli side of the border, Feb. 17, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen
Israel is considering an extension of the 42-day truce in Gaza as it seeks to bring home the remaining 63 hostages, while putting off agreement on the future of the enclave for now, Israeli officials said.
The initial phase of the ceasefire deal, launched with the backing of the United States and the help of Egyptian and Qatari mediators on Jan. 19, is due to end on Saturday and it remains unclear what will follow.
“We are being very cautious,” Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel told reporters in Jerusalem, when asked whether the truce might be extended without the start of talks on a second phase which would include difficult issues such as a final end to the war and the future governance of Gaza.
“There wasn’t a particular agreement on that, but it might be a possibility,” she said. “We didn’t close the option of continuing the current ceasefire, but in return for our hostages, and they have to be returned safely.”
If no agreement is reached by Friday, officials expect either a return to fighting or a freeze in the current situation in which the truce would continue but hostages would not return and Israel may block the entry of aid into Gaza.
Two officials who have been involved in the ceasefire process told Reuters that Israel and the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas have not engaged in negotiations to finalize an agreement over phase two of the ceasefire which will have to bridge wide gaps between the two sides to be concluded.
“I think it’s unrealistic to see something like that forming within a few days,” Haskel said. “This is something that needs to be discussed in depth. This is going to take time.”
The deal, which included the release of 33 Israeli hostages in return for some 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and detainees held in Israeli jails and the withdrawal of Israeli troops from some of their positions in Gaza, has survived numerous hiccups.
So far, 29 Israeli hostages – plus five Thais – have been released in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners and detainees, with the bodies of four more hostages, initially due to be handed over on Thursday, still to come.
There is now a standoff over the release of more than 600 Palestinians, which Israel has delayed, accusing Hamas of breaching the agreement by making a public show of the handover of Israeli hostages in Gaza.
Hamas official Basem Naim said progress could not be made while the prisoners were still being held but that Hamas was committed to a permanent ceasefire and the full withdrawal of Israeli forces.
Haskel said she hoped a solution would be found to secure the handover of the final four in the next few days.
WITKOFF DUE IN ISRAEL
Steve Witkoff, US President Donald Trump’s special Middle East envoy, is expected in Israel on Wednesday to continue discussions on the second stage, opening the way to a final end to the war in Gaza.
Negotiations over the second phase, intended to secure the release of the remaining hostages and the full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, had been meant to start this month, 16 days after the start of the truce.
Qatar’s prime minister flew to Florida on Feb. 6 and met Witkoff to discuss the “full implementation” of phase one and “to kick-start negotiations for the second phase,” according to an official briefed on the talks.
But officials in the ceasefire process say that so far none of the principal negotiators have met face to face since the first phase was agreed last month and there is little clarity on options for the “day after.”
“This is the day after Gaza, after the war in Gaza and what’s going to happen there, and so we are continuing that channel with the Americans,” Haskel said.
The fighting in Gaza was triggered by a Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7, 2023, in which Israel said about 1,200 people were killed and 251 were taken as hostages back to Gaza.
Israel responded with a military campaign aimed at freeing the hostages and dismantling Hamas’s military and governing capabilities in neighboring Gaza.
Israel has said Hamas cannot have any role in the future running of Gaza and has rejected a role for the Palestinian Authority.
Hamas has said it will not necessarily demand that it remain in charge of the enclave, which it has governed since 2007, but that it must be consulted.
Arab states, which are likely to have to shoulder much of the financial burden of rebuilding devastated Gaza, have been struggling to come up with a proposal of their own but are expected to demand a role for the Palestinian Authority.
Uncertainty increased after Trump proposed moving all the Palestinians out of Gaza to make way for a US waterfront development project, a plan that was endorsed by the Israeli cabinet but rejected by Arab states and Palestinians.
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