- HUNDRED people marched on the streets after a Christmas tree was burnt.
- US claims kidnapped journalist Austin Tice is alive
- 25000 return home from Turkiye
DAMASCUS: Syrian new leaders said on Tuesday that they had imposed a deal with Syria’s rebel groups regarding the dissolution of their formations and their absorption in the defense ministry.
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Lacking in the current meeting were some an assortment of US-backed, Kurdish-led forces that govern most of northeastern Syrian territory. In addition, hundreds of people marched in the Christian quarters of the capital to condemn the setting on fire of a Christmas tree in the city of Hama in central Syria, said agency reporters.
“We want our rights, Christians’ rights,” the protesters shouted raising their banners as they marched from the Mar Girgis church of the central district of Mar Girgis towards the Bab Sharqi area hosting the Orthodox Patriarchate building, reported the pro-government al-Watan daily.
US journalist Austin Tice, kidnapped in Syria seven years ago, is still alive say Hostage Aid Worldwide on Tuesday but did not give details of his location. Last month we had information showing that Austin is alive till January 2024; yet the president of the United States provided information in August that he is alive, and we know he has to be alive today,” Nizar Zakka of Hostage Aid Worldwide said.
“We are trying to be open and to put as much information as possible out there.” Zakka also presented photo in a press conference in Damascus, which he said, showed areas where Tice was detained between November 2017 and February 2024.
Dissolution of fighters groups
Rebel groups’ meeting with Syria’s new leader Ahmed al-Sharaa concluded with the agreement on dissolution of all the groups and their merger under the ministry of defence control,” the SANA news agency and the governmental Telegram channel reported.
The announcement is made well over two weeks after president Bashar al-Assad left Syria after a blitz campaign led by Sharaa’s Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) organisation.
On Sunday Sharaa, now recognisable by his former battle name Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, hase declared that the new authorities ‘would by no means allow there to be weapons in the country beyond state regulation.’ That also apply for the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) said he.
SDF spokesman Farhad Shami said the question of his group’s integration into the national armed forces “should be discussed directly.” He did not rule it out, saying that doing so would serve to resolve “the whole of Syria”. Shami went further and said that his forces opt for “communication with Damascus to address all issues”.
Protests in Christian-majority town
Tuesday’s protests take place slightly over two weeks after an armed coalition, led by the fighter group, overthrew the regime of Bashar al-Assad.
Other protestors who were interviewed include one named as Georges, who claimed his was protesting because of injustice against Christians. “If it is no longer possible to openly live as a Christian in this country, as we did before – then it is not our country anymore,” he said.
More demonstrations started flowing in following the circulation on the social platforms of images depicting hooded individuals burning a Christmas tree in the Christian-dominated area known as Suqaylabiyah, near the Hama province. Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reports that the attackers were foreigners from the Ansar al-Tawhid sect.
In another YouTube video a cleric of the recently formed Syrian Islamist group, HTS, spoke to the residents, insisting that those who burned the tree are ‘not Syrians’ and they will face retribution. “The tree will be restored and lighted by tomorrow morning” he said.
25,000 Syrians return home
Since the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad, over 25,000 refugees have gone back to Syria from Turkiye, the interior minister revealed on Tuesday. “The number of people returning to Syria in the last 15 days has exceeded 25,000,” Ali Yerlikaya told the official Anadolu news agency.
Now Turkey’s focus is on the process of the return to voluntary Syria, Turkey is in close contact with the new Syrian leaderships and dreaming that with the change of power in Damascus several tens of thousands of Syrians will return. Yerlikaya noted that a migration office will be opened in the Turkish embassy and consulate in Damascus and Aleppo so that records of Syrians to return home will be kept.
According to Yerlikaya, one family member will be granted the right to enter and exit three times from January 1 to July 2025 under regulations which certain Erdogan instructions on draft legislation. Those who are going to come back to their country will be able to bring food and their cars, he continued.
American journalist
Hostage Aid Worldwide has claimed today that it is liaising with the US authorities and Tice’s family. Tice, 43, described the kidnapping on Monday, in a video posted to Youtube , as a correspondent for Agence France-Presse, McClatchy News, The Washington Post, CBS and other media.
He disappeared in August 2012 not far from the Syrian capital Damascus. The authorities in the former period under the ousted president Bashar al-Assad never claimed to have him in their possession. Tice’s mother Debra said earlier this month she knew her son was alive, while Syria’s new leadership claimed they were looking for the man.