AFP Asia Business

Syria’s President Ahmed al-Sharaa met US President Donald Trump at the White House on Monday for unprecedented talks, just days after Washington removed him from a terrorism blacklist.Sharaa, whose rebel forces ousted longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad late last year, is the first Syrian leader to visit the White House since the country’s 1946 independence.Formerly affiliated with Al-Qaeda, Sharaa’s group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), was itself only delisted as a terrorist group by Washington in July. Sharaa himself was taken off the list on Friday.”The president of Syria arrived at the White House… The meeting between President Trump and President al-Sharaa has also started,” the White House said in a statement.Unusually for the normally camera-friendly Trump, both the arrival and the meeting of the Syrian president were taking place behind closed doors without the media present.Trump said last week that Sharaa was doing a “very good job. It’s a tough neighborhood. And he’s a tough guy. But I got along with them very well and a lot of progress has been made with Syria.”Since taking power, Syria’s new leaders have sought to break from their violent past and present a more moderate image to ordinary Syrians and foreign powers.Sharaa’s White House visit is “a hugely symbolic moment for the country’s new leader, who thus marks another step in his astonishing transformation from militant leader to global statesman,” said Michael Hanna, US program director at the International Crisis Group.The interim president met Trump for the first time in Saudi Arabia during the US leader’s regional tour in May. At the time the 79-year-old Trump dubbed Sharaa, 43, a “a young, attractive guy.”- Terror blacklist removal -The US envoy to Syria, Tom Barrack, said earlier this month that Sharaa may on Monday sign an agreement to join the international US-led alliance against the Islamic State (IS) group.The United States plans to establish a military base near Damascus “to coordinate humanitarian aid and observe developments between Syria and Israel,” a diplomatic source in Syria told AFP.Washington has also been pushing for some kind of pact to end decades of enmity between Syria and Israel, part of Trump’s wider goal to shore up the fragile Gaza ceasefire with a broader Middle East peace settlement.For his part, Sharaa is expected to seek US funds for Syria, which faces significant challenges in rebuilding after 13 years of devastating civil war.After his arrival in Washington, Sharaa over the weekend met with IMF chief Kristalina Georgieva over possible aid.He also played basketball with US CENTCOM commander Brad Cooper and Kevin Lambert, the head of the international anti-IS operation in Iraq, according to a social media post by Syria’s foreign minister.Sharaa’s jihadist past has caused controversy in some quarters but the State Department’s decision Friday to remove Sharaa from the blacklist was widely expected.State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott said Sharaa’s government had been meeting US demands on working to find missing Americans and on eliminating any remaining chemical weapons.Sharaa’s trip comes weeks after he became the first Syrian president in decades to address the UN General Assembly in New York. Last week Washington led a Security Council vote to remove UN sanctions against him.The Syrian president has also been making diplomatic outreach towards Washington’s rivals. He met Russian President Vladimir Putin in October in their first meeting since the removal of Assad, a key Kremlin ally.

US envoy Jared Kushner and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held talks Monday on the second phase of the Gaza ceasefire, as Washington intensified its efforts to ensure the fragile truce endures.The truce, in effect for exactly a month now, has largely halted the war that erupted after Hamas’s surprise attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.During the ongoing first stage, a series of prisoner and hostage exchanges took place over recent weeks.Kushner met Netanyahu in Jerusalem on Monday as part of US efforts to stabilise the ceasefire and lay the groundwork for its next phase.The two discussed some of the most sensitive aspects of phase two of the agreement, Israeli government spokeswoman Shosh Bedrosian told journalists.”Together the two discussed phase one, which we are currently still in, to bring our remaining hostages, and the future of phase two of this plan, which includes the disarming of Hamas, demilitarising Gaza and ensuring Hamas will have no role in the future of Gaza ever again,” Bedrosian said.”Phase two also includes the establishment of the international stabilisation force and the details of which of course together are being discussed.”Hamas has repeatedly insisted that relinquishing its weapons is a red line.Egypt, Qatar and Turkey are among the potential participants in the proposed international stabilisation force coordinated by Washington, but the United Arab Emirates has indicated it is unlikely to join without a clear operational framework.”Under such circumstances, the UAE will probably not participate in such a force,” Emirati presidential adviser Anwar Gargash told the Abu Dhabi Strategic Debate Forum on Monday.Turkey has been keen to join, but Netanyahu has repeatedly said Israel would not allow it.”The prime minister said… there will be no Turkish boots on the ground,” Bedrosian said.Turkey has been one of the most outspoken critics of the war in Gaza, and on Friday it issued arrest warrants accusing Netanyahu and several senior Israeli officials of genocide.- ‘We still do not feel safe’ -Since the truce began, Hamas has returned all 20 living hostages and the remains of 24 captives, including 21 Israelis. Four bodies of hostages killed in the October 2023 attack remain in Gaza.In exchange, Israel has freed nearly 2,000 prisoners and returned 315 bodies of Palestinian captives.The latest of those were the remains of 15 Palestinians handed over by Israel on Monday after Hamas a day earlier returned the remains of Lieutenant Hadar Goldin, killed in the 2014 Gaza war.Goldin, killed while attempting to destroy Hamas tunnels near Rafah, had been missing for 11 years.”Time has stood still. It still feels like he just left and is already coming back,” his sister Ayelet Goldin said in a statement on Monday.”How do you process fighting for a brother who’s gone? How do you fight for a soldier who went into battle, fighting to bring him home, when in reality he’ll return in a casket? How are you supposed to feel? I still don’t know,” she said.Despite the progress in hostage returns, Gazans remain anxious about their future.”We still do not feel safe. Shooting continues … we try to protect our children from psychological trauma and to help them forget the war and its effects,” said Salma Abu Shawish, 40, a resident of Al-Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza.”Life in Gaza is hard. We still lack food, and many families remain homeless. We only wish this nightmare would stop and never return.”Israel and Hamas continue to accuse each other of violating the ceasefire.On Monday, the Israeli military said it killed two militants who approached the so-called “Yellow Line,” the boundary beyond which Israeli forces hold their positions in Gaza. Gaza’s health ministry claimed Israeli forces have killed at least 242 Palestinians in the territory since the ceasefire began.Media restrictions in Gaza and difficulties in accessing many areas mean AFP is unable to independently verify details provided by the ministry or the Israeli military.

“Sixteen killed.” “Seven killed.” “Thirty-one killed.” “People are eating cowhide to survive.” “The bombs are getting closer.” “They’re shooting people trying to run away.”These were the grim updates shared with AFP’s veteran Sudan correspondent Abdelmoneim Abu Idris Ali by people trapped in the 18-month-long siege of El-Fasher, a city overrun by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) two weeks ago.Throughout the siege and ensuing battle, it was thanks to ordinary civilians that AFP and other news organisations were able to form a picture of what was happening there.They were Dr Omar Selik, Dr Adam Ibrahim Ismail, Sheikh Moussa and activist Mohamed Issa — men who relayed vital information from a city mostly cut off from communications.They have all since been killed.Until their deaths they played a crucial but, for security reasons, anonymous role in documenting Sudan’s two-year war between the army and the RSF.Ismail, a young physician, was detained by RSF fighters on October 26 as he tried to flee the city.He was shot dead the following day.Until his last moments, Ismail had been treating “the wounded and the sick” at the Saudi Hospital, El-Fasher’s last functioning medical facility, according to the Sudanese Doctors’ Union.AFP’s Abu Idris Ali learned of Ismail’s death through that statement, having spoken to him only days earlier.”His voice was weary,” Abu Idris Ali recalled from Port Sudan.”Every time we ended a call, he said goodbye as if it might be the last time.”- ‘War machine’ -In September, Abu Idris Ali had already lost three other local sources — people who answered his calls and questions whenever communications allowed.They were killed in a drone strike on a mosque in El-Fasher on September 16, which killed at least 75 people. “Their voices painted a picture of El-Fasher,” he said.”Through them, I heard the groans of the wounded, the sorrow of the bereaved, the pain of those crushed under the war machine.”Before the war broke out in April 2023, AFP journalists criss-crossed the vast country, regularly visiting far-flung areas of Darfur.It was there that Abu Idris Ali first met Sheikh Moussa, who opened the door to his modest hut in 2006, beginning a two-decade-long friendship.Though he never met the tireless Dr Selik or the fiery 28-year-old Mohamed Issa, Abu Idris Ali said, “their voices ring in my ear every day.” Dr Selik, a kind-hearted medic who acted as a key source for journalists worldwide, witnessed the collapse of El-Fasher’s health system before his own demise.Hospitals were shelled, shuttered, or emptied of supplies, yet he continued to work tirelessly. “He always tried to hide the tinge of sadness in his voice when he gave me toll figures,” Abu Idris Ali recalled. “He spoke like he was talking to a patient’s family, breaking the news of the death of a loved one.” Fearful for his own family, he sent them to safety while staying behind to save lives. Since his death, other doctors have taken up the mantle, but bombs fell daily, striking hospitals and killing medical staff.- ‘Another kind of grief’ -Only days before his death, activist Issa told AFP he had fled the famine-hit Abu Shouk displacement camp, overrun by the RSF. At 28, after months of crossing frontlines to deliver food, water and medicine to trapped families, he was killed. “Every time I asked him what was happening in the city, his voice would ring out boisterous: ‘nothing bad inshallah, I’m a little far away but I’ll go find out for you!'” Abu Idris Ali said. “You couldn’t stop him — and off he went.”Sheikh Moussa had been uprooted from his South Darfur village 22 years ago by the Janjaweed militia, from which the RSF would end up descending.He spent the rest of his life in refugee camps. “Violence broke out over and over outside his door, yet his laugh never faded,” Abu Idris Ali recalled. When bombs rained down on El-Fasher, Sheikh Moussa “would speak endlessly of the pain his people were facing, but if you ever asked him how he was, he would only ever say: al-hamdulillah, thank God”.”Every phone call, I could see him, always sitting cross-legged in the shade outside his door, always in a blindingly white jalabiya robe and matching prayer cap, always smiling despite the horrors around him.”Sheikh Moussa never made it home to his village, between El-Fasher and Nyala, the South Darfur state capital. “Many of those 75 people gathered in that mosque had run for their lives just days before, but an RSF drone showed them there was no fleeing death,” Abu Idris said.”Every death is a tragedy, one we are accustomed to reporting. Yet it is another kind of grief when it is someone you have broken bread with, someone whose voice you heard every day.”