Shujaa al-Ali (R), a regional warlord, was killed by security forces in a firefight in western Homs Province, Syria on Thursday

EA on RTE: Anticipating 2025 — From Israel-Gaza-Yemen to Syria to Ukraine-Russia

14 Security Personnel Reportedly Killed in Clashes in Syria

UPDATE 0959 GMT:

In an interview with Saudi outlet Al Arabiya, the head of Syria’s General Command, Ahmed al-Sharaa, has said that the process for a new constitution may take up to three years, and that four years might be needed for elections.

Al-Sharaa said a comprehensive census and a National Dialogue Conference, with specialized committees, will be necessary. His faction Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, which led the overthrow of the Assad regime, will be dissolved at the Conference.

UPDATE 0826 GMT:

Adnan Kassar — the equestrian champion imprisoned and tortured for 21 years after he beat Bashar al-Assad’s older brother in a competition — has spoken with Sky News.

Kassar’s “crime” was to defeat Basel al-Assad, heir to the rule of his father Hafez until he was killed in a car crash in 1994.

“I was kept underground for six months, beaten constantly, and interrogated without end,” the equestrian said.

He was transferred to Sednaya Prison outside Damascus, where tens of thousands of detainees perished from torture, execution, or poor treatment. He was also held in Tadmur Prison, also known for inhumane conditions, for 7 1/2 years.

“They pierced my ear one morning and broke my jaw in the evening,” he recalled. “For praying, they lashed me 1,000 times. My feet were torn apart, my bones exposed.”

UPDATE 0814 GMT:

Syria’s embassy in Lebanon suspended consular services on Saturday.

On Friday, the wife and daughter of one of Bashar al-Assad’s cousins were arrested at the Beirut airport with allegedly forged passports.

Two Lebanese security officials claimed the suspension was ordered because the passports were believed to have been forged at the embassy.

A day earlier, Assad’s uncle Rifaat Assad, indicted in Switzerland on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity, flew out of Beirut using his real passport.

On Saturday, Lebanese authorities handed over 70 Syrians, including former troops and low-ranking officers in the Assad regime’s armed forces, saying that they had illegally entered the country.

UPDATE 0808 GMT:

The head of Syria’s intelligence services, Anas Khattab, has pledged, “The security establishment will be reformed after dissolving all services and restructuring them in a way that honors our people.”

Khattab was appointed by the new Syrian government on Thursday. In a statement, he noted the suffering of Syrians “under the oppression and tyranny of the old [Assad] regime, through its various security apparatuses that sowed corruption and inflicted torture on the people”.

He continued, “The security services of the old regime were many and varied, with different names and affiliations, but all had in common that they had been imposed on the oppressed people for more than five decades.”

UPDATE, DEC 29:

Security forces of the new Syrian Government have arrested a major general of the overthrown Assad regime.

Hussein Jumaa was the commander of security forces in Hama. He pledged on December 4, as rebels advanced on the city, to remain in place; however, he fled hours later.

UPDATE 1051 GMT:

In his latest meeting with high-ranking foreign officials, the head of Syria’s General Command, Ahmed al-Sharaa, has hosted a Bahraini delegation led by the chief of the Strategic Security Agency, Ahmed bin Abdulaziz Al Khalifa.

Al-Sharaa also saw a senior official from Libya’s UN-recognized government, discussing diplomatic relations, energy, and migration.

“We expressed our full support for the Syrian authorities in the success of the important transitional phase,” Libyan Minister of State for Communication and Political Affairs Walid Ellafi told reporters. “We emphasized the importance of coordination and cooperation…particularly on security and military issues.”

He added, “Today the chargé d’affaires attended the meeting with me and we are seeking a permanent ambassador.”

UPDATE 0851 GMT:

Israel maintained secret communications for years with the Assad regime, even arranging for him to meet at the Kremlin with Mossad chief Yossi Cohen in late 2019.

Assad cancelled the Moscow meeting, arranged by Vladimir Putin, at the last minute. His reasons were unclear.

Israel hoped to detach the regime from Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah, who had propped up Assad throughout the Syrian uprising from March 2011.

The Israel Defense Forces began corresponding with high-ranking regime officials via WhatsApp.

The messages, sent by an IDF intelligence unit under the name “Musa”, warned the Syrians to stop Iran’s arms transfers to Hezbollah and updated them on Israel’s airstrikes against the shipments. Musa wrote directly to members of Assad’s inner circle, including Defense Minister Ali Mahmoud Abbas.

Israel reportedly offered to ease international sanctions against the regime in return for its blocking of Iran’s arms shipments to Hezbollah.

At times, it issued threats. In May 2023, “Musa” warned Defense Minister Abbas that Israel “won’t agree to the presence” of Hezbollah’s chief of operations in the Syrian Golan Heights, on the border with Israel.

“Cooperation with Hezbollah harms the Syrian army and its people, and you will pay the price,” Musa wrote. “Any support on your part for the Axis and Hezbollah that can harm my country, will be met with a harsh response.”

Days later, Musa warned the regime against co-operation with Iran’s weapons transfers to Hezbollah. He sent the tail numbers of Syrian warplanes monitored at Russia’s Hmeimim airbase in the west of the country.

After the regime halted its flights in and out of Hmeimim, Musa expressed gratitude: “As the people who are responsible for stopping these flights, you should know that you have prevented a conflict that is undesirable.”

Israel’s contact with Assad, mediated by Russia, continuing until days before he fled to Moscow.

UPDATE 0756 GMT:

Activist Celine Kasem posts photos of family members in Damascus, holding up images of relatives who disappeared under the Assad regime:

UPDATE, DEC 28:

Fighters of the Islamist faction Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, which led the overthrow of the Assad regime, march in Damascus on Friday.

UPDATE 1904 GMT:

The Governor of Damascus Province, Maher Marwan, has said:

We want peace, and we cannot be an opponent to Israel or an opponent to anyone. We have no fear towards Israel, and our problem is not with Israel.

And we don’t want to meddle in anything that will threaten Israel’s security or any other country’s security.

Marwan continued, “There exists a people who want coexistence. They want peace. They don’t want disputes.”

UPDATE 1855 GMT:

Ayşe Seyidoğlu is the first woman in Syria’s transitional government.

Seyidoğlu, the President of the Syrian Associations Platform, has been appointed as the Head of the Women’s Affairs Office.

She is a dual national, having obtained Turkish citizenship as a refugee.

UPDATE 1102 GMT:

Around 730,000 displaced people living in tent camps in northwest Syria are suffering from adverse conditions this winter, including from flooding, says the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

More than 200 family tents in camps in Idlib and northern Aleppo Provinces were damaged by heavy rainfall on Monday.

“Since the start of 2024, flooding and strong winds have damaged more than 8,800 family tents – including nearly 2,000 that were fully destroyed – across 260 camps,” the OCHA said.

UPDATE 0959 GMT:

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, whose country is
.

Journalist Oz Katerji posts:

ORIGINAL ENTRY: Security forces are continuing to fight elements of the overthrown Assad regime in western Syria.

On Thursday, the security personnel reportedly killed the Assad-linked warlord Shujaa Al-Ali, battling him and his men in the village of Balqasah in western Homs Province.

The forces of the new Syrian Government began their campaign against the armed groups last Saturday. A series of gangs, affiliated with the former regime’s 4th Division led by Bashar al-Assad’s brother Maher, operated along the Lebanon border. When the regime fell, they seized weapons from the disintegrating army.

Many of the groups have been involved in extortion, abduction, and in the sale and distribution of the amphetamine Captagon, from which the Assad regime made billions of dollars.

Shujaa al-Ali, leading a militia on the Lebanese border, was accused of war crimes since 2012. They included abduction and torture of men, women, and children for ransom.

Claimed video of al-Ali calling for the burning of a mosque in Houla, the site of a mass killing of civilians by Assad regime forces in 2012:

On Wednesday, 14 security personnel and three armed men were killed in fighting. The government forces were trying to arrest an officer linked to the Assad regime’s Sednaya Prison, where tens of thousands of detainees perished from torture, executions, or poor conditions.