Syria’s de facto leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa has said holding elections in Syria could take as long as four years. This is the first time he has commented on a possible electoral timetable since Bashar al-Assad was removed earlier this month . Drafting a new constitution could take up to three years, Sharaa said in an interview with the Saudi state-owned …

Bashar al-Assad, Syria’s ousted president, has denied claims that he fled the country amid the collapse of his regime, according to a statement posted Monday on the Syrian Presidency’s Telegram account. The authenticity of the statement remains unclear, as Assad has not publicly commented since his regime’s fall earlier this month. The post alleges that Assad left Damascus for Russia’s …

The EU will not lift sanctions on Syria before its new rulers ensure minorities are not persecuted and women’s rights are protected within a unified government that disavows religious extremism, the EU’s top diplomat said. An EU foreign ministers’ meeting in Brussels on Monday, which had Syria on the agenda, would not discuss expanding financial support to the country beyond …

Riyad Avlar spent 20 years languishing in Syria’s jails, including a decade in the infamous Saydnaya prison, the scene of some of the Bashar Al Assad government’s most brutal abuses. Those long years behind bars have left him with one obsession: documenting and healing the atrocities committed inside the prison where he himself was locked up. <cs-card “=”” class=”card-outer card-full-size …

Tensions have emerged between Syria’s new Hayat Tahrir Al Sham (HTS) rulers and other rebels, sources told The National on Thursday. The cracks could undermine a transition to a new government after the rebels brought down the dictatorship of Bashar Al Assad. The Assad regime, which was dominated by the Alawite minority who ruled Sunni-majority Syria for six decades, collapsed after HTS swept through Syria’s main urban centres on …

Children in war-torn parts of the world are suffering more than before with violence against them reaching the highest numbers seen in almost two decades, according to Save the Children (STC). Its report has found grave violations against children in conflict-hit regions increased 15 per cent in 2023, the highest level since UN reporting of these crimes started in 2005. …

The UN Human Rights office has criticised what it called a “systematic violation” of international humanitarian law, while Israel rejected the report’s findings. The United Nations Human Rights Office has said nearly 70 per cent of the fatalities it has verified in the Gaza war were women and children, condemning what it called a “systematic violation of the fundamental principles …

Australia’s Middle Eastern trading partners say a 50-year working relationship has been “thrown out the door” by the decision to end live sheep exports by sea. Decades of exports to markets like Kuwait are set to end in 2028, after the Albanese government confirmed earlier this year the trade would cease. It came as somewhat of a surprise to Kuwaiti officials, …

Two soldiers were killed in Israeli air strikes on military installations in Iran on Saturday, according to the Iranian army. “The army of the Islamic Republic of Iran lost two of its fighters during the night when they faced projectiles from the criminal Zionist regime in defence of its territory,”  the army said in a statement carried by state television. …

Israel’s military says a Hezbollah drone killed four soldiers at one of its northern bases, as it expanded its bombardments of Lebanon and troops battled militants across the border. The attack on a military training camp in Binyamina, near Haifa, is the deadliest such assault on an Israeli base since September 23, when Israel increased its attacks on Hezbollah in Lebanon. …