Author: Steven Sahiounie

On March 11, the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) shelled positions of al-Qaeda-affiliated Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) in the outskirts of the town of al-Atarib in the western Aleppo countryside, a part of the Greater Idlib region, with heavy mortars. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the shelling killed a militant of HTS and wounded several other people. The mortar attack came following shelling by HTS on the SAA’s 46th Regiment base in the western Aleppo countryside. A large force from the army and its allies, including Lebanese Hezbollah, is known to be deployed at the base. HTS escalated…

On March 11, terrorists believed to be members of ISIS attacked a group of civilians who were collecting truffles near Khanaser town in the southern countryside of Aleppo in Syria’s central region. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the terrorists “slaughtered” three of the civilians, all young men, and abducted 26 others, including women. The London-based monitoring group said that the attack took place near a position of Iranian-backed forces, who maintain a large presence on the strategic road leading to Khanaser and from there to Aleppo city. ISIS cells in central Syria escalated their attacks against government…

The Cabinet held an extraordinary session chaired by Prime Minister Hussein Arnous to review the most important government measures taken by the Ministries to move from the emergency phase to the recovery from the repercussions of the earthquake struck Syria on February 6. The Cabinet approved the plan of the Ministry of Public Works and Housing, which includes the immediate construction of 740 houses for families left homeless (8 buildings with 440 houses in Aleppo and 8 buildings with 300 houses in Lattakia). It affirmed on exerting every effort to finish these buildings as quickly as possible, in parallel with…

No one was injured Russian peacekeepers registered one violation of ceasefire in Nagorno-Karabakh, the Russian Defense Ministry said in a bulletin, published Saturday. “One ceasefire violation has been registered in the Martakert District. No one was injured,” the Ministry said. According to the bulletin, the Russian peacekeeping contingent has initiated a procedure over this incident. “In order to ensure the security of Russian peacekeepers and to prevent potential incidents, constant contact is being maintained with General Staffs of Azerbaijani and Armenian Armed Forces,” the Defense Ministry said. Source: Tass

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Iran strongly condemned a terrorist attack on an award ceremony for journalists in Afghanistan’s northern Balkh province. In a statement on Saturday, Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Nasser Kanaani condemned the terrorist attack on the gathering of journalists at Afghan Voice Agency (AVA) office and the Tabian Farhang center in Mazar-i-Sharif, the capital of Afghanistan’s Balkh province. Offering his condolences on the death and injury of a number of journalists and cultural activists in the explosion, the Iranian spokesman expressed sympathy with the injured, the families of victims and the society of Afghan journalists. Kanaani denounced those…

Belgian MP Simon Moutquin has called for imposing sanctions on the far-right Israeli government for committing war crimes against the Palestinian people. In a speech before his country’s parliament, Moutquin criticized the position of Belgium and the European Union towards what is happening in the occupied Palestinian territories, saying lenient policies towards Israel are tantamount to a license to kill. He mentioned the recent attacked carried out by the Israeli army and settlers in Jenin, Huwara and Nablus, adding that the year 2023 is the bloodiest for the Palestinian people in years. “All this is happening under the most extreme…

Amid a recent escalation by the Israeli authorities aimed at prohibiting displays of the Palestinian flag, and in response to the government’s express intention to pass legislation to achieve that objective, Adalah – The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, based in Haifa, said the proposed ban is part of a larger pattern of attempts to deny Palestinians their right to express their collective identity. Adalah issued a position paper on 8 March in which it addresses the legality of displaying the Palestinian flag in the public sphere in Israel. The paper examines the history of hostility and…

US and German media sought to turn the Nord Stream sabotage attacks into an open-and-shut whodunit detective novel this week by laying the blame at the feet of a “pro-Ukrainian group” with no links to any state. This information contradicts reporting by veteran journalist Seymour Hersh, who fingered the US and Norwegian militaries for the crime. A Greek-flagged tanker was spotted loitering around the site of the Nord Stream attacks for six days in September 2022, two weeks before the pipelines were blown up in a sabotage attack, a Denmark-based open-source intelligence (OSINT) analyst has discovered. Trawling through data from…

Ukrainian media say the Ukrainian military possibly used the JDAM near the Kurdyumivka settlement. Ukraine has possibly used for the first time since the beginning of the war a Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM), or a “smart bomb”, near Bakhmut city, Ukrainian news outlet Strana.ua reported on Friday. The JDAM was reported to have been used by the Ukrainian military forces near the Kurdyumivka settlement, the outlet said. Yan Gagin, an advisor to the leader of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), told Russian news agency TASS on March 10 that Ukrainian forces dropped a JDAM bomb on Kurdyumivka near the Bakhmut region of the…

The Saudi Foreign Minister says Lebanon must engage in local efforts to elect a president and not rely on foreign interventions. Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud said Lebanon must observe its own interests when choosing its president, stressing that the country requires joint Lebanese-only efforts to elect a president, not an “Iranian-Saudi rapprochement”. On the other hand, Bin Farhan revealed an Arab effort to formulate a dialogue that will “inevitably” take place with Damascus, in consultation with the international community. He continued, “We must find a way to overcome the challenges posed by this status…