Protesters in New York and rights groups expressed outrage Monday over the arrest of a leader of pro-Palestinian demonstrations at Columbia University, as President Donald Trump vowed further crackdowns.Mahmoud Khalil, a recent graduate and one of the most prominent faces of the university’s high-profile protests, was arrested by US immigration officials over the weekend despite holding a permanent residency green card.The Department of Homeland Security, confirming Khalil’s arrest on Sunday, claimed he had “led activities aligned to Hamas” and that the DHS action was taken “in coordination with the Department of State.””We know there are more students at Columbia and other Universities across the Country who have engaged in pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity, and the Trump Administration will not tolerate it,” the president wrote Monday on his Truth Social platform.”This is the first arrest of many to come,” he pledged.The protests at Columbia, launched last year in opposition to Israel’s devastating war in Gaza, brought widespread media attention as tensions mounted on campus and spread to other universities around the country.Some protests turned violent and saw campus buildings occupied, while students protesting Israel’s conduct were frequently pitted against pro-Israel campaigners, many of whom were Jewish.Trump and other Republicans have broadly accused the protesters of supporting Hamas, the Palestinian militant group and US-designated terrorist group whose deadly attack on October 7, 2023 against Israel sparked the war.While the Trump administration moves to quickly deport Khalil, who has reportedly been moved to the southern state of Louisiana, a federal judge on Monday ordered authorities to halt proceedings.The order, seen by AFP, by Judge Jesse Furman of the Southern District of New York also called for a preliminary hearing on Wednesday.- ‘A kidnapping’ -The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) condemned Khalil’s arrest, calling it “unprecedented, illegal, and un-American.””The government’s actions are obviously intended to intimidate and chill speech on one side of a public debate,” said Ben Wizner, director of the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy and Technology Project, in a statement.On Monday afternoon, over 1,000 protesters gathered in New York to express their outrage at Khalil’s arrest.”This was essentially a kidnapping,” said 42-year-old Tobi, who declined to give her last name for fear of retaliation.”It seems like a clear targeting of activists, which is a really, really dangerous precedent,” she said.According to his supporters, Khalil was arrested late Saturday night while returning with his pregnant wife to their residence in Columbia student housing.”This is a dismal moment in American history. We must not go down this authoritarian path one step further,” said Michael Thaddeu, one of around 50 professors who expressed their concern Monday at a press conference.The Trump administration has particularly targeted Columbia over its handling of the protests, threatening to revoke billions in federal funding if more action is not taken.On Friday, four government agencies announced initial cuts of $400 million.The arrest also prompted an outcry from the United Nations, with the spokesman for Secretary-General Antonio Guterres saying Monday “it is crucial to underscore the importance of respecting the right of freedom of expression and the right to peaceful assembly everywhere.”

The Syrian presidency announced on Monday an agreement with the head of the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) to integrate the institutions of the autonomous Kurdish administration in the northeast into the national government.Syria’s new authorities under interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa have sought to disband armed groups and establish government control over the entirety of the country since ousting long-time leader Bashar al-Assad in December after more than 13 years of civil war.The new accord, which is expected to be implemented by the end of the year, comes after days of violence in the heartland of Syria’s Alawite minority that has posed the most serious threat yet to the country’s stability since Assad’s fall. The presidency published a statement on Monday signed by both parties laying out the agreement on “the integration of all the civilian and military institutions of the northeast of Syria within the administration of the Syrian state, including border posts, the airport, and the oil and gas fields”.State media released a photo of Sharaa shaking hands with SDF leader Mazloum Abdi following the signing of the agreement.The statement said “the Kurdish community is an essential component of the Syrian state”, which “guarantees its right to citizenship and all of its constitutional rights”.It also rejected “calls for division, hate speech and attempts to sow discord” between different segments of Syrian society.Abdi said Tuesday that the accord was a “real opportunity to build a new Syria”. “We are committed to building a better future that guarantees the rights of all Syrians and fulfills their aspirations for peace and dignity,” the SDF leader said on X.- ‘Supporting the state’ -The SDF serves as the de facto army of the de facto autonomous Kurdish administration that controls large swathes of northern and eastern Syria, including most of the country’s oil and gas fields, which may prove a crucial resource for the new authorities as they seek to rebuild the country.The new agreement also references “supporting the Syrian state in its fight against Assad’s remnants and all threats to (the country’s) security and unity”.Syria’s new authorities announced on Monday the end of an operation against loyalists of Assad that the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said had killed at least 1,068 civilians, most of them members of the Alawite minority who were executed by the security forces or allied groups.The violence in the coastal heartland of the Alawite community, to which Assad belongs, broke out last week after gunmen loyal to the deposed president attacked Syria’s new security forces.The fighting has also killed 231 security personnel and 250 pro-Assad fighters, according to the Britain-based Observatory.- Marginalised and repressed -Marginalised and repressed during decades of Assad family rule, the Kurds were deprived of the right to speak their language and celebrate their holidays and, in many cases, of Syrian nationality.The SDF took advantage of the withdrawal of government forces during the civil war which broke out in 2011 to establish de facto autonomy in the north and northeast.The US-backed SDF played a key role in the fight against the Islamic State group, which was defeated in its last territorial stronghold in 2019.Since Assad’s overthrow, the Kurds have shown a degree of willingness to engage with the new authorities, but they were excluded from a recent national dialogue conference over their refusal to disarm.The agreement comes nearly two weeks after a historic call by jailed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) founder Abdullah Ocalan for the militant group to lay down its weapons and disband.The SDF maintains it is independent from the PKK, which has waged a decades-long insurgency against the Turkish government.It is dominated, however, by the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), which Ankara views as an offshoot of the PKK.The Turkish government, which is close to Syria’s new authorities, has designated the PKK a terrorist organisation, as have the United States and the European Union.The Turkish army, which has troops deployed in northern Syria, regularly carries out strikes on areas controlled by Kurdish forces, and Turkish-backed groups have been attacking SDF-held areas of northern Syria since November.