Tag: syria

Israelis with dual nationality behind ‘large-scale’ acquisition of Syrian agricultural lands: Report

Israel is expanding its control over territory in southern Syria, not merely through military means, but also through the purchase of agricultural lands by individuals of Jewish descent holding multiple nationalities, Al-Akhbar reported on 4 May.

According to a local source in the Deraa Governorate of southern Syria, extensive purchases of agricultural land are underway in the Yarmouk Basin, an area with significant water resources bordering the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

These transactions are reportedly being orchestrated by individuals linked to Jewish agencies and holding passports from various countries, including Canada, Australia, and the UK.

The reports specifically name an organization called the “Pioneers of Bashan” as one of the key parties involved in the land purchases.

According to these sources, the total land area involved in these transactions amounts to approximately 200,000 dunams (200 square kilometers).

The sales have been formalized through official contracts, amid apprehension among local residents regarding the suspected links between some of these deals and Jewish entities.

The sources speaking with Al-Akhbar also reported that an Israeli delegation recently visited archaeological sites in the region – including several hills believed to contain ancient Jewish burial grounds.

In a related context, reports indicate that former Syrian army military sites in the Deraa countryside – including the headquarters of the 61st Brigade and the 128th Battalion (part of the 5th Division) – have been purchased by an Australian businessman. This individual is reportedly acting on behalf of a Jewish agency dedicated to expansion and settlement activities.

Since Syrian president Bashar al-Assad’s government was toppled by formerly Al-Qaeda-linked Salafist extremists in December 2024, Israel has expanded its occupation of the Golan Heights and other territories in southern Syria.

Jewish settler groups in Israel say it is their goal to occupy land in southern Syria and southern Lebanon in a bid to expand the borders of Greater Israel through military conquest and Jewish settlement.

Israeli forces carry out nearly daily incursions into southern Syria, facing no resistance from Syria’s new government, led by the former ISIS commander Ahmad al-Sharaa.

Sharaa’s new army has instead been targeting Syria’s religious minorities, including carrying out major massacres of the country’s Alawites and Druze, as well as at times against Christians and Kurds.

In the 2024 documentary “In Israel: Ministers of Chaos,” Israeli Finance Minister and settler leader Bezael Smotrich stated, “It is written that the future of Jerusalem is to expand to Damascus.”

Smotrich claimed that Israel would expand “little by little” and eventually encompass all occupied Palestinian territories as well as Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, Syria, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia.

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Far Right Israeli Settler Movement Enters Syria in a Push for “Greater Israel”

yrian journalist Oudai Efnikher is deeply familiar with life under Israeli occupation. He was born in Kafer Hareb, a village in Syria’s Golan Heights, from which he and his family were expelled after Israel seized the territory during the 1967 Six-Day War.

Now he is once again facing down Israeli forces, as they “take our land, kill our crops, and abduct our fathers.”

“This is a slow occupation, but soon, we will lose what they have not yet taken,” Efnikher told Truthout.

After Bashar al-Assad was ousted by Syrian rebels in December 2024, Israeli forces wasted no time before launching a massive aerial bombardment campaign on the country, destroying almost 80 percent of the military capacity left behind by the Assad regime.

Israeli forces also entered the demilitarized buffer zone established by a UN Security Council resolution in 1974 between the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights and the rest of Syria. They seized the territory and then established a “security buffer” beyond the last demarcation line administered by UN observer forces.

The area now under Israeli military control is off-limits to Syrian civilians and government forces. Farmers have been unable to tend to their land, and landowners have little hope they will ever be able to access it again

In total, Israel now occupies an additional 177 square miles of Syrian territory than it did before the fall of Assad.

“Maybe Israel will take it all. They already have a safe zone in southern Syria, so that could ultimately be the best option for Israel,” Syrian political analyst Issam Khoury told Truthout.

But what is most concerning for Efnikher is not the Israeli military’s presence in Syria, but what has become regular incursions by Israeli settlers.

On April 22, a group of roughly 40 settlers affiliated with the far right Halutzei HaBashan movement, or the Pioneers of Bashan — a reference to the name in the Torah for the fertile territory located northeast of the Sea of Galilee, which the Torah says was once ruled by the tyrant King Og before Moses defeated him — entered Syrian territory and asked the Israeli government to legalize settlement activity there.

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Last US Convoy Exits Syria After Brutal 14-Year Regime Change Proxy War

Widespread reports on Thursday say the very last US military convoy has finally departed Syrian territory, with the years-long occupation of the primarily northeast oil and gas rich sector over in a ‘mission accomplished’ fashion.

It brings to a final close the 14-year long bloody proxy war which overthrew the Assad government and ultimately installed a pro-US/Saudi axis puppet, in the person of founding Syrian Al Qaeda Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, now known as President Ahmed al-Sharaa.

Hundreds of thousand of people lost their lives in the regime change war, with the country and its economy left in a sanction-starved and conflict-demolished state of ruins.

The US-backed Syrian Foreign Ministry declared Washington had decided to “complete its military mission” in the country. “The Syrian state is today fully capable of leading counter-terrorism efforts from within, in co-operation with the international community,” it said, happy to now be back in control of the domestic oil and gas supply.

The ministry “welcomes the completed handover of military sites where United States forces were previously present in Syria to the Syrian government,” adding that “the handover of these sites was carried out … in full coordination between the Syrian and American governments.”

While Pentagon propaganda had for years touted an ‘anti-ISIS’ mission, the real purpose of the troop presence was to cut off Damascus under Assad of its sovereign natural resources, and to arm and prop up a Kurdish-Arab coalition called the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). 

All the while, the CIA supported Sunni hardline jihadists who were indistinguishable from ISIS in their ideology in the fight against the Syrian Army, and the civilian population which often largely supported the secular Ba’ath government. The broader strategy has long been to destroy the Tehran-Baghdad-Hezbollah ‘Shia axis’ – even if that meant using ISIS as a tool of regime change.

Ironically, in the process of this US handover of oil and gas facilities back to post-Assad Damascus, the Kurds were thrown under the bus. Their dream for an autonomous enclave (Rojava) once again proved illusory, and in the long term the Kurds will find themselves at the mercy of Sunni fanatics on the one hand, and Turkish state under Erdogan on the other.

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Surprise! Germany Wants Syrians to Leave – But They Are Refusing

Only about a third of working-age Syrians living in Germany are employed. The government is now attempting to send them back to Syria, since the reason they were allowed in was to escape the Bashar al-Assad regime, which is now gone. But less than 0.001% have accepted voluntary deportation.

Approximately 1.3 million Syrians currently live in Germany, including 25,000 born there. Chancellor Friedrich Merz and other conservatives in his coalition have called for their repatriation, arguing there are no longer grounds for asylum since Assad’s fall ended the civil war.

On March 30, speaking alongside Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa in Berlin, Merz said roughly 80% of Syrians in Germany should return home over the next three years, while acknowledging that well-integrated workers may stay. Al-Sharaa disputed the framing, saying Syrians have built new lives in Germany and that it would be difficult to start over, but that Western investment in Syria could draw them back voluntarily.

The response from Syrians in Germany has been near-total refusal. Since Assad’s fall, roughly 1,300 people, about 0.1%, have voluntarily returned, according to Germany’s interior ministry. Germany offered financial incentives of up to $4,300 per family to encourage voluntary departure, with negligible uptake.

A demonstration against the repatriation plan was held in Berlin the day al-Sharaa met with Merz, under the slogan “No deportation deals with human rights abusers.”

About 15% of Syrians in Germany have acquired German citizenship and cannot be deported. Syrian nationals with a residence permit also cannot be forced to leave. The German coalition agreement between Germany’s leading political parties, CDU/CSU and SPD, permits deportations, but only prioritizes criminals and public safety threats.

Deportations resumed in December 2025 on a limited scale, and no deportations of non-criminal Syrians have been carried out. Migration expert Daniel Thym has noted that once protection status is revoked, the individual has 15 months of legal appeals, and a full court challenge from the affected population would create gridlock.

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US ‘worked directly’ with terrorists in Syria on Israel’s behalf – Trump’s ex-counterterrorism chief

The US “worked directly with Al-Qaeda” and Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) to topple former President Bashar Assad and destroy Syria, US President Donald Trump’s former counterterrorism chief, Joe Kent, has said.

Kent, who resigned as head of the US National Counterterrorism Center in protest of the US-Israeli war against Iran, made the remarks in an interview with MintPress News on Friday.

The former senior official reiterated his take on the Iran conflict as the latest in a series of wars waged by the US on behalf of Israel, preceded by the Second Iraq War and the Syrian Civil War, in which Washington actively backed terrorist groups, he said.

“We came in and we said: We’re going to work with the Israelis, but we’re also going to have to work heavily with the Sunni population on the ground in Syria to create an uprising,” he added.

“And that’s where ISIS came from. We worked directly with Al-Qaeda; Hillary Clinton’s emails confirm this. The operations that we were doing to support the so-called Free Syrian Army, and there were some moderates there, but the most effective guys initially were Al-Qaeda and then eventually ISIS.”

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Israeli Forces Raise Flag Over Syrian Town In Latest Raid: ‘Provocative Act’

Israeli military vehicles rolled into the town of Hadr in Syria’s Quneitra Governorate days ago and raised the Israeli flag over the town’s entrance. Locals say they also closed all but one road leading into or out of the town, and established a checkpoint on that road as well.

Though Israel routinely raids Quneitra’s towns and villages of late, raising the Israeli government’s flag over a town is more provocative than what usually happens in these incidents, and like most of Israel’s military forays on Syrian soil, they’ve yet to issue a statement to even attempt to explain the purpose of the operation.

Hadr is a relatively small town of about 5,000 people along the frontier between Quneitra Governorate and the UNDOF demilitarized zone, a zone which has subsequently been occupied militarily by Israel. Some suburbs of Hadr extend into the demilitarized zone.

Israel also launched operations against multiple other villages in Quneitra earlier this week, including Saida al-Golan and Saida al-Hanout. They captured two young men who were herding sheep to the west of the village.

The troops also captured two village elders in Saida al-Golan, though the elders were ultimately released without incident. The fate of the shepherds remains uncertain, and again the IDF has not commented.

As for the flag-raising incident, Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which the mainstream media had long relied on as its main anti-Assad source throughout the prior war, detailed the following of the “provocative act”:

Al-Quneitra province: Israeli forces raised the Israeli flag at the entrance of Hadr Town in northern Al-Quneitra countryside [on Wednesday], raising local questions regarding the escalation in the area.

According to sources, these forces closed secondary roads leading to the town from the side of Al-Qanaif checkpoints, and only kept the main road leading to the town open.

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US Encourages Syria To Consider Military Action Against Hezbollah In Lebanon, But Damascus Remains Hesitant-Barrack Denies

The United States has privately urged Syria’s new government to deploy forces into eastern Lebanon to help dismantle or disarm the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah, according to sources familiar with the discussions. However, Syrian authorities have shown strong reluctance, citing fears of drawing the country into a wider regional war and exacerbating sectarian tensions.

The proposal, first reported by Reuters, comes amid heightened efforts by the US and its allies to weaken Hezbollah following its attacks on Israel in support of Iran. Hezbollah opened fire on Israel on March 2, triggering an Israeli offensive in Lebanon as part of the broader Middle East conflict.

Sources briefed on the matter, including two Syrian officials and others with knowledge of the talks, told Reuters that Washington encouraged Damascus to send troops across the border to target Hezbollah positions in eastern Lebanon. The idea reportedly originated last year and gained renewed attention around the onset of US and Israeli military operations against Iran. Accounts differ on the precise timing: Syrian officials claim the request came just before the escalation, while a Western intelligence source placed it shortly after.

US Special Envoy for Syria Tom Barrack, who also serves as ambassador to Turkey, swiftly denied the reports. In a post on X, Barrack described the claims that the US encouraged Syrian intervention in Lebanon as “false and inaccurate.” The US State Department declined to comment on private diplomatic exchanges.

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US Intelligence: 15,000+ Were Let Free From ISIS Detention Camp After Collapse

Another ‘win’ for America’s disastrous Syria policy, long predicated on overthrowing the Assad government and installing a ‘moderate’ Sunni regime – though it turns out Jolani’s bearded Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) militants are anything but…

“U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that 15,000 to 20,000 people, including Islamic State affiliates are now at large in Syria, after an exodus from a camp that held jihadists’ families, U.S. officials familiar with the estimate said,” The Wall Street Journal reports Friday.

Who could have predicted that chaos, instability, and terrorism would come out of the CIA’s Operation Timber Sycamore? Well, we did, and every rational observer of the Syria situation.

A billion plus dollars and hundreds of thousands of lives after the decade-long proxy war, and this is all Washington has to show for it:  

Security experts have long warned that the wives of Islamic State fighters were effectively raising the next generation of militants at the sprawling Al-Hol facility. Security at the camp fell apart in recent weeks after Syria’s government routed the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, which had guarded Al-Hol for years, raising concerns about the release of people who might have become radicalized during the years held behind the razor wire.

The size of a small city, the camp in Syria’s eastern desert at one point held more than 70,000 people after U.S.-backed forces destroyed what remained of Islamic State’s self-proclaimed caliphate in Syria in 2019. At the end of 2025, more than 23,000 people were there, according to a report this week from the Pentagon’s Inspector General.

The US military is rapidly backing out of this region after the years-long occupation, effectively throwing the Kurds (SDF) under the bus, as HTS radicals move in and take control. 

Given many analysts have pointed to HTS being ‘ISIS-lite’ to begin with, the following WSJ note is no surprise: “The vast majority have left Al-Hol after the Syrian government took control last month. Western diplomats in Damascus assessed that more than 20,000 people fled the camp in a matter of days earlier amid rioting and a surge of escape attempts.”

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Israel Launches New Raids into Southern Syria, Troops Fire on Civilians

Israel has launched new incursions into southwestern Syria since Wednesday night, first firing artillery toward a village in the northern part of Quneitra Governorate and then, Thursday morning, sending troops in outright.

New checkpoints were established by the IDF, with the first reportedly in Sayda al-Hanout, where they restricted the movement of villagers, and then another in Jabata al-Khashab, further north in Quneitra. Both checkpoints are likely temporary, as Israel tends to establish them, hassle locals for a few hours, then withdraw.

The northern checkpoint appears to have been a more serious problem for locals, as the Israeli troops fired on civilians and news reporters in the nearby village of Ofaniyah. There were no reports of casualties, but it is fairly unusual for a checkpoint to involve shooting at people in the next village over.

In addition to the ground operations in Quneitra, there were reports of increased activity by Israeli warplanes over the neighboring Daraa Governorate. Though drones overhead in Israel-adjacent parts of Syria are not uncommon, the warplanes are an unusual escalation, despite no attacks having yet been reported.

Israel invaded Syria in December of 2024, immediately following the ouster of the Assad government. The territory that Israel has claimed is largely within the demilitarized zone, in Quneitra, though their ground operations continue and often go substantially deeper into Syrian territory, targeting both Daraa and Quneitra as well as the Rif al-Damashq Governorate further north.

Syria and Israel have been in negotiations meant to reduce tensions in the region, though Israel has ruled out withdrawing from the demilitarized zone and are instead demanding Syria created a whole new one adjacent to the old, now-occupied one.

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US Carries Out Large-Scale Strikes Against ISIS in Syria

US Central Command (CENTCOM) reported that they have carried out “large-scale” airstrikes against ISIS in Syria, saying the hit multiple sites belonging to the terror group as part of their commitment to “pursuing terrorists” and in retaliation for the mid-December incident in which an ISIS infiltrator attacked and killed two US troops and an American civilian translator in Palmyra.

The strikes began Saturday evening, and CENTCOM claimed multiple coalition partners participated, though only Jordan has actually confirmed being involved so far. 35 sites were reportedly hit in the strikes, involving 90 “precision munitions.”

Details of what exactly was hit are unclear, though the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported three checkpoints within the Deir Ezzor Governorate were attacked by coalition strikes, though they noted that no damage was done and no casualties were reported in those cases.

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