Tag: syria

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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Syria is Normalizing Ties With Israel, Here’s Why – Analysis

There is no longer any space in which reasonable people can argue that Syria’s current leadership has not become a US-aligned force that seeks further cooperation with the Israelis.

On January 6, 2026, a joint statement was published by the US State Department, affirming that the Israelis and Syrians had established a “joint fusion mechanism”. Despite being labeled an official normalization deal, this mechanism works as a soft normalization arrangement.

As the topic of Syrian normalization is often one that triggers a rather aggressive reaction from all sides, it is important to cut through the propaganda to establish what just happened.

As a product of a direct meeting between Israeli and Syrian officials in Paris, with the participation of the United States, both Damascus and Tel Aviv have agreed to a quasi-normalization deal of sorts.

The joint statement that was published on the US State Department website makes the issue extremely clear: a “joint fusion mechanism”, or “dedicated communication cell”, has now been established. This mechanism includes facilitating Israeli-Syrian cooperation in the following arenas:

  • Intelligence sharing 
  • Diplomatic engagement 
  • Commercial opportunities 
  • Military de-escalation 

Some supporters of Syrian President, Ahmed al-Shara’a, have been adamant that what was reached and is being pursued is solely to do with security issues and the issue of southern Syria. Today’s joint statement thoroughly debunks any such claims.

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Germany Facing ‘Demographic Time Bomb’ From Syrian Chain Migration, Expert Warns

A leading immigration expert has warned that Germany is facing a “demographic time bomb” if it allows the massive influx of alleged refugees from Syria to become citizens as they will be enabled to bring their family members to the country.

A Dutch social scientist who is described as the top migration expert in Germany, Ruud Koopmans, has warned of the massive implications for the makeup of German society that chain migration represents. He argued that the government should consider whether it is the interest of the country to grant citizenship to the near million supposed refugees from Syria.

Speaking to Cicero magazine, Koopmans said that while there has been positive steps made, such as scrapping the so-called “turbo naturalization” of allowing migrants to apply for citizenship after just three years, the standard five-year process remains in place and can still “be considered a demographic time bomb in the long run.”

“We have almost one million Syrian refugees in Germany. It is necessary to think about the consequences of this for the future. This one million people has a great overrepresentation of men. They will look for their partners mostly in the country of origin. This is extremely likely because in these countries, marriages usually take place within large families. In these societies, marriage is also an economic business between families, and the ticket to Europe is an important means of exchange,” the Dutch social scientist said.

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