WASHINGTON (Dunya News) – Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said that the United States is continuously monitoring the ceasefire between Pakistan and India, and that maintaining the ceasefire is not easy — it is always complex and challenging.
In an interview, Secretary Rubio said: “We are keeping a close watch on Pakistan and India. We are constantly monitoring what’s happening between the two. A ceasefire is only possible when both parties are willing to stop fighting — and Russia has not done that yet.”
He stated that the US has been keeping a daily watch on various regions such as Pakistan and India, Cambodia and Thailand, in order to maintain ceasefires.
“Ceasefire agreements can be broken down very quickly, especially after three years of war in Ukraine.” However, he emphasized that the goal is not just a temporary ceasefire, but a peace agreement that ensures there is no war now or in the future.
Rubio added, “We are very fortunate to have a president who has made peace a priority for his administration. We’ve seen peace in Cambodia and Thailand, efforts have been made in India and Pakistan, and we will seize every opportunity to promote peace around the world.”
It is worth noting that on May 10, President Trump announced on social media that India and Pakistan had agreed to a complete and immediate ceasefire through Washington’s mediation. Trump has claimed more than thirty times that he helped stop a war between Pakistan and India.
On the other hand, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar have clearly stated that there was no third-party involvement in the ceasefire, nor was it linked to trade, as Trump had claimed.
ISLAMABAD, Aug 19 (APP):The Centre for Afghanistan Middle East and Africa (CAMEA) at the Institute of Strategic Studies Islamabad (ISSI) hosted a webinar, titled “Four Years of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan: Governance, Domestic Trajectories, and International Engagement”.
The webinar was moderated by Ms. Amina Khan, Director CAMEA. Speakers included Ambassador Khalid Mahmood, Chairman BoG, ISSI; Sardar Ahmad Shakeeb, Ambassador of Afghanistan to Pakistan; Ambassador Mansoor Ahmad Khan, Pakistan’s Former Ambassador to Afghanistan; Adam Weinstein, Deputy Director of the Middle East Program at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, Washington D.C., and Flavius Caba Maria, President and Director of the Political Department, Middle East Political and Economic Institute (MEPEI), Romania, said a press release issued on Tuesday.
Ambassador Khalid Mahmood, in his opening remarks said that four years after the Taliban’s return, Afghanistan has witnessed consolidation of rule and expanded external engagement, including symbolic recognition from Russia. He noted, however, that broader recognition remains withheld over concerns of human rights, inclusivity, and terrorism.
On Pakistan-Afghanistan ties, he highlighted both challenges such as cross-border attacks and positive steps including ambassador-level appointments and revival of the Joint Coordination Committee. He concluded that despite difficulties, renewed diplomatic engagement shows a pragmatic recognition of the need for cooperation and regional connectivity.
Ms. Amina Khan, Director CAMEA at ISSI, said that August 15, 2025, marked four years since the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) assumed power as the de facto authority in Afghanistan. She noted that while the IEA has brought stability, curbed corruption, banned poppy cultivation, and expanded diplomatic outreach, these gains have been overshadowed by its failure to honor reform pledges under the Doha Agreement, particularly on human and women’s rights, inclusivity, and counter-terrorism. She concluded that the group’s performance remains transitional and marked by persistent shortcomings.
Ambassador Shakeeb said that Afghanistan stands at the threshold of a new chapter under the Islamic Emirate. He noted that over the past four years, nationwide security has been ensured, narcotics cultivation eradicated, and a justice system established across all provinces.
He highlighted Afghanistan’s move toward economic self-reliance and major projects in agriculture, energy, and infrastructure, alongside social programs for orphans, widows, and persons with disabilities.
On foreign relations, he emphasized Afghanistan’s balanced diplomacy, citing engagement with over 100 countries and Russia’s recognition as a milestone in its international integration.
Ambassador Mansoor Khan said that four years on, the Taliban have brought stability and consolidated control, yet sanctions, lack of recognition, and failure to ensure women’s rights, girls’ education, and counter-terrorism remain major concerns.
He noted divisions between hardliners and moderates, stressing that Afghanistan faces a choice between reforms leading to integration or isolation if shortcomings persist. On Pakistan-Afghanistan ties, he emphasized that terrorism remains a hurdle to economic cooperation and that constitutional reforms reflecting the aspirations of the Afghan people are essential.
Adam Weinstein said that while the U.S. remains the largest donor, providing part of nearly $10 billion in aid since 2021, Afghanistan has become a low priority for Washington under the Trump administration. He noted that the Taliban and Afghan people have shown resilience to aid cuts, but stressed that the Taliban must meet the international community halfway by choosing reforms and regional integration over isolation. He described U.S. policy as ad hoc and impulsive, and added that the Doha process has become piecemeal and largely dead.
Dr. Flavius Caba-Maria said that four years after the Taliban’s return, Afghanistan remains largely isolated internationally despite expanded regional engagement and recognition from Russia. He noted that while security has improved and drug flows curbed, the humanitarian situation is dire and refugees continue to be returned.
On the EU’s policy, he stated that although Europe remains focused on Ukraine, it continues coordination on aid and refugees without extending recognition. He added that some EU states are considering greater engagement, but the Union must adopt a more pragmatic approach aligned with realities on the ground.
In his concluding remarks, Ambassador Khalid Mahmood said that Afghanistan stands at an important juncture. He noted that while challenges remain, the Taliban’s regional and international engagement reflects recognition of the need for cooperation. He emphasized that inclusive policies and responsiveness to international concerns are essential for Afghanistan’s stability, development, and integration into the global community.
Washington – Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Sunday that a temporary ceasefire agreement between Ukraine and Russia is “not off the table,” even though U.S., Ukrainian and Russian leaders agree that the best outcome is a peace deal that permanently ends the war.
“It was agreed to by all that the best way to end this conflict is through a full peace deal,” Rubio told NBC News’ “Meet the Press.” “There’s no doubt about that. I mean, who would be against the fact that tomorrow we came to you and said, ‘We have a full peace deal, and it’s done.’ I think that’s the best way to end the war.”
“Now, whether there needs to be a ceasefire on the way there, well, we’ve advocated for that,” Rubio added. “Unfortunately, the Russians, as of now, have not agreed to that.”
The fact that neither Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy nor any representative from Ukraine were present for the discussions did not dim hopes among U.S. officials that they could push Putin toward a ceasefire agreement or a peace deal.
After the Alaska meeting, however, the U.S. president told reporters, “There’s no deal until there’s a deal.”
Later in the “Meet the Press” interview, Rubio placed blame on Putin for not moving toward a ceasefire, responding to questions about Russia’s continued strikes in Ukraine over the last few days.
“We think usually it’s very hard to negotiate when you’re in the middle of hostilities. But that said, the only way to have a ceasefire is for both sides to agree to stop firing at one another … and the Russians just haven’t agreed to that,” he said.
Zelenskyy is headed to the White House on Monday to meet with Trump and other European leaders, including Finland’s President Alexander Stubb, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte and U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
In Brussels on Sunday, during a joint press conference with von der Leyen, Zelenskyy emphasized the importance of a ceasefire for peace deal negotiations to continue.
Rubio on Sunday spoke more about the Trump administration’s decision not to impose new sanctions on Russia, despite Putin’s reluctance to move toward a peace deal, saying, “What we’re trying to do right now is end the war.”
“If we’re not going to be able to reach an agreement here at any point, then there are going to be consequences, not only the consequences of the war continuing, but the consequences of all those sanctions continuing, and potentially new sanctions on top of it as well. But what we’re trying to do right now is end the war,” Rubio told “Meet the Press” moderator Kristen Welker.
“I don’t think new sanctions on Russia are going to force them to accept ceasefire. They’re already under very severe sanctions,” he added later in the interview.
The secretary of state also said that the decision to impose new sanctions is incompatible with the fight for a lasting peace deal.
“Those options [for sanctions] remain to the president,” Rubio said. “The minute he takes those steps, all talks stop. The minute we take those steps, there is no one left in the world to go talk to the Russians and try to get them to the table to reach a peace agreement. So that moment may come. I hope not, because I hope we get a peace deal.”
Though Rubio declined to provide insight into negotiations among Ukraine, Russia, the U.S. and European allies, two points that have arisen publicly in recent weeks appear to be about territorial swaps and security guarantees for Ukraine.
“There has to be talk about what the territories are going to look like and what the border lines are going to look like at the end of this conflict. There has to be talk about Ukraine’s legitimate desire for security in the long term to make sure they don’t get invaded again,” Rubio said Sunday. “There has to be talk about how Ukraine is rebuilt, and how do you rebuild a country that’s been attacked as often as it has over the last three and a half years.”
“These are all key elements of any agreement. We understand that. And … if there’s going to be a deal, each side is going to have to give up on something,” he added.
Looking at a map of the territory in Ukraine that Russia has occupied, Rubio added, “Ultimately, if the Ukrainians are not willing to give that up, and no one’s pushing Ukraine to give that up — and so I don’t think that’s what — there’s going to be a peace deal. It’s not going to look like that.”
The secretary of state added that Putin is “certainly asking for things that the Ukrainians and others are not willing to be supportive of and that we’re not going to push them to give, and the Ukrainians are asking for things that the Russians are not going to give up on.”
Steve Witkoff, the Trump administration’s special envoy to the Middle East, further detailed the discussions about territorial lines on CNN’s “State of the Union,” saying that there are five crucial regions under discussion in peace deal negotiations.
“There are five regions here that it’s — it’s always in, in our view, been the crux of the deal,” Witkoff told CNN without specifying what the five regions are beyond Donetsk.
“The Russians made some concessions at the table with regard to all five of those regions,” Witkoff added, saying that the discussion will continue “on Monday, when President Zelenskyy arrives with his delegation and some of the other European leaders.”
Rubio also wouldn’t comment on what the United States’ role could look like in potential security guarantees, though Trump has maintained that a potential peace deal would not include a pathway for Ukraine to join NATO.
NBC News previously reported that Trump spoke with Zelenskyy and European leaders over the phone early Saturday morning about a potential NATO-like security guarantee for Ukraine that includes the U.S. as part of a deal struck with Russia.
“There’ll have to be some security guarantees for Ukraine, right?” Rubio said Sunday. “I mean, it’s one of their fundamental demands — is that if this war were to end, they have to make sure this never happens again.”
“In order for there [to] be a peace, the Russian side is going to have to accept that Ukraine is a sovereign country that has a right to defend itself and has a right to enter into alliances with other countries to defend itself. How that’s constructed, what we call it, how it’s built, what guarantees are built in there that are enforceable, that’s what we’ll be talking about over the next few days,” the secretary of state added.
On “Fox News Sunday,” Witkoff said that security guarantees could potentially be modeled off of NATO’s Article Five.
“It means that the United States is potentially prepared to be able to give Article Five security guarantees, but not from NATO, directly from the United States and other European countries,” Witkoff said, adding that this was another point of discussion for Monday’s meetings with Zelenskyy and other European leaders.
Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., on Sunday slammed Rubio’s comments and Trump’s decision to meet with Putin in the first place, also appearing on “Meet the Press.”
“That meeting was a disaster. It was an embarrassment for the United States. It was a failure. Putin got everything he wanted,” Murphy said.
“Trump said, ‘If I don’t get a ceasefire, Putin is going to pay a price.’ And then he walked out of that meeting saying, ‘I didn’t get a ceasefire. I didn’t get a peace deal, and I’m not even considering sanctions,’” Murphy added. “You heard Secretary Rubio downplay sanctions. And so Putin walks away with his photo op with zero commitments made and zero consequences. What a great day for Russia.”
Congress workers participate in a candlelight march to pay tribute to the victims of the Kishtwar and Kathua cloudbursts, in Jammu, Sunday, August 17, 2025.
| Photo Credit: PTI
The Jammu and Kashmir Government on Sunday (August 17, 2025) ordered the closure of all educational institutions in the Jammu region on Monday (August 18, 2025) in view of the inclement weather conditions, officials said.
Sixty-eight persons lost their lives and 122 suffered injuries in three cloudbursts — in the Chisoti village of the Kishtwar district and Jodh Ghati and Janglote areas of the Kathua district — during the past four days.
“In view of the inclement and bad weather conditions, it is hereby ordered that all government as well as private schools of Jammu Division shall remain closed for tomorrow, i.e., 18.8.2025,” Director, School Education said in an order in Jammu.
This has been done in view of the warning of heavy rains in ten districts of the region.
Few districts put on alert
The Meteorological Department issued a weather advisory for Jammu and Kashmir, forecasting heavy rains and thundershowers from August 17 to 19. “Risk of cloudbursts, flash floods, landslides in vulnerable areas. Districts on alert include Jammu, Reasi, Udhampur, Rajouri, Poonch, Samba, Kathua, Doda, Kishtwar, Ramban and parts of Kashmir,” it said.
On August 14, flash floods triggered by cloudburst struck Chisoti — the last motorable village en route the Machail Mata temple in Kishtwar — leaving 61 persons dead and more than 116 others injured. So far, 82 people — 81 pilgrims and one CISF personnel — are reported missing after the cloudburst-induced floods hit the village.
On August 17, seven persons were killed and five others injured in two separate incidents of cloudburst and landslide in the Kathua district. The calamity struck the Jodh Ghati village of Rajbagh and Janglote amid heavy overnight rains.
MUZAFFARABAD – Authorities in Bagh, Azad Kashmir, have announced the temporary closure of all educational institutions in view of a high flood alert issued by the Meteorological Department.
According to an official notification, both public and private schools across the region will remain closed on August 18 and 19, 2025.
The precautionary measure aims to ensure the safety of students and staff as the region braces for potential flooding due to ongoing and forecasted heavy rainfall.
The Met Office said districts including Muzaffarabad, Rawalakot, Bagh, Haveli, Kotli, Mirpur, and Bhimber are expected to receive heavy rainfall and thunderstorms in coming days.
These conditions may trigger landslides and flash flooding, particularly in hilly areas, it warned.
It further said heavy to very heavy rainfall/thunderstorms are expected in Islamabad over the next 24 hours with occasional gaps.
Meanwhile, most parts of Punjab will see widespread rainfall/thunderstorms. Districts in the Potohar and northeastern parts, including Rawalpindi, Attock, Jhelum, Chakwal, Lahore, Gujranwala, Sialkot, Gujrat, Narowal, Hafizabad, and Mandi Bahauddin, are expected to face heavy to very heavy rainfall, increasing the chances of urban flooding.
Central and southern districts such as Multan, D.G. Khan, Rajanpur, Layyah, Bhakkar, and Sahiwal will experience scattered thunderstorms, while Bahawalpur, Bahawalnagar, and Rahim Yar Khan may experience isolated light rainfall.
The northern and upper districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, including Swat, Buner, Shangla, Dir, Mansehra, Battagram, Abbottabad, and Malakand, are lexpected to witness heavy spells, with flash floods and landslides possible in hilly terrain over the next 24 hours.
The Peshawar valley, covering Peshawar, Charsadda, Nowshera, Mardan, and Swabi, will see scattered thunderstorms, while southern KP districts such as D.I. Khan, Tank, Bannu, Lakki Marwat, Karak, and Kohat can expect scattered rainfall/ thunderstorms with occasional heavyfalls.
Saudi king, crown prince offer condolences to Pakistani president over flood victims
RIYADH: Saudi Arabia’s King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Monday condoled with Pakistan over the victims of floods that struck the country’s north, resulting in deaths, injuries, and missing persons.
In a cable to President Asif Ali Zardari, King Salman extended his “deepest condolences and sincere sympathy” to the families of the victims and the people of Pakistan as a whole, praying for the “speedy recovery of the injured and safe return of the missing.”
The crown prince sent a similar cable to Zardari, according to the Saudi Press Agency, or the SPA.
Pakistani officials have said at least 344 lost their lives, mostly in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, where torrential rains and cloudbursts triggered massive flooding on Friday. More than 150 were reported still missing.
Homes were flattened by torrents of water that swept down from the mountains in Buner, carrying boulders that smashed into houses like explosions.
The government said that while an early warning system was in place, the sudden downpour in Buner was so intense that the deluge struck before residents could be alerted.
Lt. Gen. Inam Haider, chairman of the National Disaster Management Authority, told a hastily convened news conference in Islamabad that Pakistan was experiencing shifting weather patterns because of climate change.
Since the monsoon season began in June, Pakistan has already received 50 percent more rainfall than in the same period last year, he added.
LONDON: Eight months after the fall of the Bashar Assad regime, the world is watching and hoping that Syria, despite its fragility, can avoid partition along sectarian lines.
The latest crisis erupted in mid-July in the southern province of Suweida. On July 12, clashes broke out between militias aligned with Druze leader Sheikh Hikmat Al-Hijri and pro-government Bedouin fighters, according to Human Rights Watch.
Within days, the fighting had escalated, with interim government forces deploying to the area. On July 14, Israel launched airstrikes on government buildings in Damascus and Syrian troops in Suweida with the stated aim of protecting the Druze community.
Although they constitute just three to five percent of Syria’s overall population, the Druze — a religious minority — make up the majority in Suweida, with further concentrations in Israel and the Israeli-occupied Golan.
Syria’s Druze heartland in Soweida has seen a shaky calm since violence between the Druze and Bedouins in July killed thousands. (AFP)
Diplomatic maneuvers quickly followed. On July 26, Israeli and Syrian officials met in Paris for US-mediated talks about the security situation in southern Syria. Syria’s state-run Ekhbariya TV, citing a diplomatic source, said both sides agreed to continue discussions to maintain stability.
The human cost has been severe. Fighting in Suweida has displaced roughly 192,000 people and killed at least 1,120, including hundreds of civilians, according to the UN refugee agency, citing a UK-based monitoring group.
The bloodshed in Suweida has cast a long shadow over Syria’s post-Assad transition. “Syria is already fractured,” Joshua Landis, director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma, told Arab News. “The Druze region is under Druze control and the much more important northeast is ruled by the Kurdish-led SDF (Syrian Democratic Forces).
“The real question is whether (President Ahmad) Al-Sharaa’s new government can bring them back under government control.”
FASTFACTS
• Syria is home to eight major religious sects, including Sunni, Alawite, Twelver Shiite, Ismaili, Druze and several Christian denominations.
• Its ethnic and cultural mosaic includes Arabs, Kurds, Turkmen, Assyrians, Armenians, Yazidis and others with distinct identities.
Analysts say the surge in violence reflects the fragility of Syria’s political and social landscapes.
“This violence is not only disturbing; it’s also revealing a lot about the internal dynamics inside Syria,” Ibrahim Al-Assil, who leads the Syria Project for the Atlantic Council’s Middle East programs, told CNN last month.
“It also shows how fragile not only the ceasefires are but also the whole transition inside Syria.”
Al-Assil said the turmoil also tests the ability of Syria’s government, its society, and regional powers — including Israel — to guide the country toward stability.
Despite a US-mediated ceasefire declared on July 16, sporadic clashes persist. Residents report severe shortages of food, fuel and medicine, blaming a government blockade — an allegation Syria’s interim authorities deny.
Syrian security forces deploy in Walga town amid clashes between tribal and bedouin fighters on one side, and Druze gunmen on the other, near the predominantly Druze city of Sweida in southern Syria on July 19, 2025. (AFP)
Camille Otrakji, a Syrian-Canadian analyst, describes Syria as “deeply fragile” and so vulnerable to shocks that further stress could lead to breakdown.
He told Arab News that although “officials and their foreign allies scramble to bolster public trust,” it remains “brittle,” eroded by “daily missteps” and by abuses factions within the security forces.
From a rights perspective, institutional credibility will hinge on behavior. Adam Coogle, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch, stresses the need for “professional, accountable security forces that represent and protect all communities without discrimination.”
Coogle said in a July 22 statement that de-escalation must go hand in hand with civilian protection, safe returns, restored services and rebuilding trust.
The battlefield map complicates the political storyline. Tensions between the SDF and government troops threaten an agreement reached in March to integrate the Kurdish-led coalition into the national military.
Mazloum Abdi, commander-in-chief of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), speaks during the pan-Kurdish “Unity and Consensus” conference in Qamishli in northeastern Syria on April 26, 2025. (AFP)
Talks were set back earlier this month when the two sides clashed, with both accusing the other of striking first. The interim government announced it was backing out of talks planned in Paris in objection to a recent conference calling for a decentralized, democratic constitution.
The August 8 meeting in the northeastern city of Hasakah brought together Kurds, Druze and Alawite figures and called for a new democratic constitution and a decentralized system that respects Syria’s cultural and religious diversity.
State-run news agency SANA quoted an official accusing the SDF-hosted event of having a separatist agenda and of inviting foreign intervention.
Meanwhile, religion and identity remain combustible. The coalition of rebel groups that ousted Assad in December was led by Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham, which was led by Al-Sharaa.
Members of the former rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham stand guard on a street in Damascus, Syria, on December 31, 2024,. to monitor security and prevent crime in their districts after the ouster of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad. (REUTERS)
The insurgent pedigree of parts of the new administration fuels mistrust among communities already raw from years of war.
Meanwhile, fear continues to grip Alawite communities in coastal areas amid reports of ongoing revenge attacks. Assad belonged to the sect and promoted many in his government, making them a target since his downfall, even though most had nothing to do with his repression.
A UN-backed commission that investigated violence in coastal areas in March found that killings, torture, looting and burning of homes and tents primarily targeted Alawites and culminated in massacres.
Families of Syria’s Alawite minority cross the Nahr al-Kabir river, forming the border between Syria’s western coastal province and northern Lebanon in the Hekr al-Daher area on March 11, 2025, to enter Lebanon while fleeing from sectarian violence in their heartland along Syria’s Mediterranean coast. (AFP/File)
These developments across the war-weary country have heightened fears of sectarian partition, though experts say the reality is more complex.
“The risk is real, but it is more complex than a straightforward territorial split,” Haian Dukhan, a lecturer in politics and international relations at the UK’s Teesside University, told Arab News.
“While Syria’s post-2024 landscape is marked by renewed sectarian and ethnic tensions, these divisions are not neatly mapped onto clear-cut borders.”
He noted that fragmentation is emerging not as formal borders but as “pockets of influence” — Druze autonomy in Suweida, Kurdish self-administration in the northeast, and unease among some Alawite communities.
“If violence persists,” Dukhan says, “these local power structures could harden into semi-permanent zones of authority, undermining the idea of a cohesive national state without producing formal secession.”
In Suweida, communal confidence is buoyed by a sense of agency — and by outside deterrence. Al-Hijri, the most prominent of Syria’s three Druze leaders, has resisted handing control of Suweida to Damascus.
“There is no consensus between us and the Damascus government,” he told American broadcaster NPR in April. Landis, for his part, argues that Israel’s military posture has been decisive in Suweida’s recent calculus.
Taken together, these incidents underscore the paradox of Syria’s “local” conflicts: even the most provincial skirmishes are shaped by regional red lines and international leverage.
Against this backdrop, Damascus has drawn closer to Turkiye. On August 14, Reuters reported the two had signed an agreement for Ankara to train and advise Syria’s new army and supply weapons and logistics.
“Damascus needs military assistance if it is to subdue the SDF and to find a way to thwart Israel,” Landis said. “Only Turkiye seems willing to provide such assistance.”
Although Landis believes it “unlikely that Turkiye can help Damascus against Israel, it is eager to help in taking on the Kurds.”
While the SDF has around 60,000 well-armed and trained fighters, it is still reliant on foreign backers. “If the US and Europeans are unwilling to defend them, Turkiye and Al-Sharaa’s growing forces will eventually subdue them,” said Landis.
US forces patrol in Syria’s northeastern city Qamishli, in the Hasakeh province, mostly controlled by Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), on January 9, 2025. (AFP)
For Ankara, the endgame is unchanged. Turkiye’s strategic aim is to prevent any form of Kurdish self-rule, which it views as a security threat, said Dukhan.
“By helping the government bring the Kurdish-led SDF into the national army and reopening trade routes, Turkiye is shaping relations between communities and Syria’s place in the region.”
Could there be more to Syria’s flareups than meets the eye? Ghassan Ibrahim, founder of the UK-based Global Arab Network, thinks so. “It looks like a sectarian conflict, but at the same time, it has a strong element of political ambition,” he told Arab News.
He pointed to the unrest in Suweida as one example. “On the surface, what happened there looks sectarian, but at its core, it’s more about political autonomy.”
Elaborating on the issue, he noted that Al-Hijri had long supported Assad and believed Suweida should have a degree of independent self-rule.
“When that ambition was crushed — by the (interim) government — things spiraled out of control, taking on a stronger sectarian appearance,” he said. “But I still see it mainly as a struggle for power — each side is trying to bring areas under its control by force.”
Syrian government security forces set up a checkpoint in the town of Busra al-Hariri, east of the city of Sweida, on July 20, 2025, to prevent armed tribal fighters from advancing towards the city.
This perspective dovetails with Dukhan’s view that “sectarian identity in Syria is fluid and often intersects with economic interests, tribal loyalties and local security concerns.”
He noted that “even in areas dominated by one community, there are competing visions about the future.” That fluidity complicates any blueprint for stabilization. Even if front lines quiet, the political map could still splinter into de facto zones where different rules and loyalties prevail.
To Landis, the government’s current instinct is consolidation. He believes the leadership “has chosen to use force to unify Syria,” which he adds “has proven successful” in the coastal region “because the Alawites are not united and had largely given up their weapons.”
Success by force in one region, however, does not guarantee the model will travel. In Suweida, Israel’s tripwire and Druze cohesion have raised the price of any government offensive. In the northeast, the SDF’s numbers, organization, and foreign ties complicate any quick military integration.
If raw power cannot produce a durable settlement, what could? For Dukhan, the transitional government’s challenge is “to prevent local self-rule from drifting into de facto partition by offering credible political inclusion and security guarantees.”
That formula implies a real negotiation over autonomy, representation, and local policing — sensitive subjects that arouse deep suspicion in Damascus and among nationalists fearful of a slippery slope to breakup.
Landis agrees that compromise is possible, but unlikely. “Al-Sharaa has the option of compromising with Syria’s minorities, who want to retain a large degree of autonomy and to be able to ensure their own safety from abuse and massacres,” he said. “It is unlikely that he will concede such powers.”
Syria’s President Ahmed al-Sharaa (R) and SDF chief Mazloum Abdi seal their agreement with a handshake in Damascus on March 10, 2025, to integrate the institutions of the semi-autonomous Kurdish administration in the northeast into the national government. (AFP)
Still, experts say Syria can avoid permanent fracture if all sides — domestic and foreign — work toward reconciliation.
As Syria’s conflict involves multiple domestic factions and foreign powers, Ibrahim said international actors could foster peace by pressuring their allies on the ground. Responsibility, he stressed, lies with all sides.
“The way forward is cooperation from all,” he said. “For example, Israel could pressure Sheikh Al-Hijri and make it clear that it’s not here to create a ‘Hijristan’.”
Ibrahim was referring to the Druze leader’s purported ambition to carve out a sovereign state in Suweida.
Otrakji said that “after 14 years of conflict, Syria is now wide open — a hub not just for diplomats and business envoys, but also for military, intelligence and public relations operatives.”
Representatives and dignitaries of Syrian communities attend a two-day national dialogue conference called for by the country’s new authorities in Damascus on February 24, 2025.
The previous regime was rigid and combative, he said, but the new leadership “seems intent on pleasing everyone.”
That balancing act carries dangers — overpromising at home, underdelivering on reforms, and alienating multiple constituencies at once.
Otrakji stressed that without full implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 2254, Syria will remain trapped “on a dizzying political rollercoaster” and in uncertainty.
The UNSC reaffirmed on August 10 its call for an inclusive, Syrian-led political process to safeguard rights and enable Syrians to determine their future.
Global Arab Network’s Ibrahim concluded that Syria does not need regime change, but rather reconciliation, education and a leadership capable of dispelling the idea that this is a sectarian war.
Sectarian and religious leaders, he said, “must understand that Syria will remain one unified, central state with some flexibility — but nothing beyond that.”
The first time I met Al Jazeera’s Gaza team lead, Tamer Almisshal,was in July last year. His team had already buried two journalists, Hamza al-Dahdouh and Samer Abu Daqqa. The rest, he told me, were hungry. They were also dealing with trying to get hold of protective gear, threats from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and the killing of family members. Ismail al-Ghoul hadn’t seen his wife and child in months and was missing them intensely. Hossam Shabat, Mohammed Qraiqea and Anas al-Sharif were asking for time to secure food in the morning before they could start reporting. Today, they are all dead.
I spoke with various members of the Gaza teamwhile writing a profile of Gaza’s veteran reporter Wael al-Dahdouh, who lost his wife, three of his children and grandson. All spoke of their work as a duty that needed to be carried out despite the risks. Three members of that team have since been killed in a chain of assassinations. Each time I sent condolences, the response was always that the coverage would not cease. “We are continuing,” the Gaza editor told me last week, after he lost his entire Gaza City team in the targeted strike that claimed the lives of Sharif, Mohammed Nofal, Ibrahim Thaher and Qraiqea. “We will not betray their message, or their last wishes.”
As these killings dazed the world – and the response to them became mired in unproven and in some cases risibly implausible claims that some of these journalists were militants – little has been said about the calibre of journalism in Gaza. How fluent, articulate and poised its journalists are under impossible circumstances. How much they manage to capture horrific events and pain on a daily basis, in a journalistic Arabic that they have perfected to an art, while maintaining a professional, collected presence on camera. How much they manage to keep their cool. I struggled often to translate their words into English, so rich and expansive is their expression. Even Sharif’s final message, a text for the ages, loses some of its power in translation. In it, he addresses those who “choked” our breath, but the word he uses is closer to “besieged” – evoking not just physical asphyxiation but the silencing of a surveilled people’s voice.
What strikes me when I speak with journalists in and from Gaza is how evangelical and heartbreakingly idealistic they are; how much journalism to them was a duty even if it meant certain death. All who have been killed had a choice, and those who are still alive and reporting still do. Sharif said he had been threatened several times by Israeli authorities over the past two years. Al Jazeera told me that he was sent a warning by Israeli intelligence and told to stop reporting. When he refused, his father was killed in an airstrike. When Ghoul took over from Dahdouh early last year, Dahdouh told him that it was a dangerous job, and no one would fault him for leaving his post and returning to his wife and child. Ghoul refused, and was decapitated in a targeted strike.
What the Israeli government is trying to do with these killings is not just stop the stream of damning reports and footage, but annihilate the very image of Palestinians that these media professionals convey. The credibility, dignity and talent that Gaza’s journalists exhibit to the world in their reports and social media posts has to be extinguished. The more Gaza is a place that is teeming with militants, where there are no reliable narrators, and where Israel’s justifications for killing and starvation cannot be challenged by plausible witnesses, the easier Israel can prosecute its genocidal campaign.
Al Jazeera’s Anas al-Sharif among five journalists killed by Israel in Gaza – video
A recent investigation by +972 Magazine and Local Call identified the sinisterly named “legitimisation cell”, a unit of the Israeli military tasked, in the words of the report, with “identifying Gaza-based journalists it could portray as undercover Hamas operatives, in an effort to blunt growing global outrage over Israel’s killing of reporters”. According to the investigation’s sources, the effort is “driven by anger that Gaza-based reporters were ‘smearing [Israel’s] name in front of the world’”.
Central to this effort is Israel’s ability to rely on western media to treat its claims as somehow plausible, despite the fact that time and time again, it has made claims that turn out not to be true. Emergency workers who were killed because they were “advancing suspiciously”, according to the IDF, were said to be found in restraints with execution-style shots. The claim that Hamas was systematically stealing aid, which is used to justify blockade and starvation, was contradicted by sources within the Israeli military itself.It is Hamas that is shooting Palestinians queueing for aid, Israel has said, not us.
Eventually, this behaviour deserves to be called what it is: systemic deception that forfeits your right to be a credible authority. And still we are told that Israel has killed a journalist, but here is Israel’s claim that the journalist was a militant. You can make up your mind. The resulting ambiguity means that even if these claims cannot be verified, they are imbued with potential truth. Do you see how that works?
The truth is that journalists in Gaza have been colossally failed by many of their colleagues in the western media – not just in terms of how their killings are reported, but in how the entire conflict is described. Figures of the dead and starving in Gaza are often described as coming from “Hamas-run” ministries, but you don’t see the statements coming from Israeli authorities caveated as serially unreliable, or the phrase “wanted by the international criminal court” attached to the name Benjamin Netanyahu.Meanwhile, the word of Palestinian journalists is never quite enough – not until foreign media (who are not allowed into Gaza) can give the final gold-standard judgment. They are cast out of the body of journalism, their truth buried along with them.
In Gaza, however, there will always be someone brave and clear-eyed who continues the coverage. Who puts on a press flak jacket that makes them a target. They continue to bear, alone, the responsibility of bringing the world the reality of events in Gaza, even as their voices and breaths are besieged.
BEIJING, Aug. 18 — The combined gross domestic product (GDP) of China’s five autonomous regions surged from 6.01 trillion yuan (about 843.06 billion U.S. dollars) in 2020 to nearly 8.38 trillion yuan in 2024, a senior official said on Monday.
Duan Yijun, deputy head of the National Ethnic Affairs Commission, announced the figures at a press conference held by the State Council Information Office.
The five autonomous regions are the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, the Xizang Autonomous Region, the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, and the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.
