David Lammy met with Syria's interim president Al-Sharaa
"I'm here to speak to this new government, to urge them to continue to be inclusive, to ensure that there's transparency and accountability in the way that they govern," he said."But [also] to stand by the Syrian people and Syria as it makes this peaceful transition over the coming months."Syria is in a fragile situation with a new Islamic-led government in charge.In December, rebels led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, a group which has been proscribed as a terrorist organisation by the UK, UN and US, stormed Damascus, toppling the Assad regime which had ruled the country for 54 years.Since then, Western countries have sought to reset relations with the country.At the end of June, US President Donald Trump signed an executive order ending sanctions against the country.The White House said at the time it would monitor the new Syrian government's actions including by "addressing foreign terrorists" and "banning Palestinian terrorist groups".The UK has also lifted sanctions.Al-Sharaa met French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris in May while other foreign officials, including Ukraine's foreign minister, have visited Syria.Many members of Syria's new government, including the interim president, were members of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham.Asked how the government deals with a group it had listed on the proscribed terror group as a pseudonym for al-Qaeda, Lammy said he recognised the country has a bloody recent history associated with terrorism and war, but said the UK is looking "to the future" and engaging with the new government.Various violent attacks against minority groups have been committed in Syria in recent months.Hundreds have been killed from the Alawite minority, there were violent attacks on the Druze community, and recently a brutal attack on peaceful worshippers inside a church in Damascus.Internationally, these attacks have prompted concern about how much Syria's new government can protect minorities but also provide safety and stability.Almost every day, there are reported cases of killing or kidnapping.Lammy said: "It's important that the UK lean in to ensure that the balance is tipped in the right direction, a balance towards accountability, transparency, inclusivity for all of the communities that make up this country, a prosperous one and a peaceful one."Within Syria, many people are worried the government is slipping towards a new form of dictatorship.There are restrictions on social freedoms, the role of women is being marginalised in the government, and there is more and more enforcement of Islamic practices rather than a clear governance based on civic codes representing the whole society.In these early days of the government there are also fears around how it is being formed. Only one female minister has been appointed and al-Sharaa has made almost every other appointment - with no election, referendum or opinion polls.Many appointments in the government are reported to be based on connections rather than qualifications, and most of those in charge have a radical Islamic agenda and are enforcing it.Lammy said the UK wants Syria to "move in the direction of peace, of prosperity, of stability for the people and an inclusive country" and will use humanitarian aid to help that. He added the UK would monitor the situation to ensure the new government ruled the population in an inclusive manner.The UK government is also supporting the Organisation of the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) to help dismantle Assad's chemical weapons in Syria.A further £2m was committed to the organisation this financial year in addition to around £837,000 provided since the fall of Assad.
Challenges ahead for new government
There are many challenges ahead of Syria - both internally and in the region.Israel has invaded parts of Syria and carried out hundreds of air strikes, and continues to hold hundreds of square kilometres inside Syrian territory.Lammy said he "urged the Israeli government to think again about some of their actions" to avoid undermining "the progress that could be made in this new Syria".Hundreds of foreign fighters and their families have been held in detention camps in north-west Syria for years, including dozens from the UK.Asked whether the UK was going to take them back home, Lammy did not give a clear answer. He said he had discussed the issue of camps with Syria's president, as well as how to help the country deal with counterterrorism and irregular migration.The situation in Syria remains precarious, and its security is at risk with threats from the Islamic State group and radical jihadist fighters who have joined the government.While international support will certainly help the war-torn country recover, it could also help pressure the government to be a representative of a diverse and open society.
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The Independent
19 minutes ago
- The Independent
Shot in the head or pounded by Israeli bombs: How a week of bloodshed shattered Syria's fragile peace
Just a few months into the tentative rebirth of a new Syria, a bloody sectarian conflict is once again raging in the volatile southern borderlands. War now threatens to tip the country over the edge and spill into an already unstable region. Fighting has engulfed Suweida, a southern city with a majority Druze population—an ethnic-religious minority with roots in Shia Islam, whose adherents live in Syria, Lebanon, and Israel. Videos shared from the ground claim to show horrific summary executions and violence. Neighbouring Israel, facing pressure from its own Druze population, has taken a violent stand. Missiles have rained down on government forces in Suweida and in central Damascus, pounding the country's Defence Ministry and presidential palace. In this whirl of shrapnel and shellfire, hopes for a new era of peace in a nation long torn apart by dictatorship and a 14-year civil war are quickly fading. Instead, Syria appears on the brink of being dragged into yet another civil and international conflict. 'A lot of the dead have been shot in the head. Eighty per cent of the population are now refugees in the surrounding villages. It's a disaster,' says Samer, (not his real name) a Druze journalist who spent years clandestinely reporting from Suweida during Syria's bloody civil war. Samer spoke to The Independent from a partially functioning hospital in Suweida, where he said hundreds of the injured and dead were taken. He asked to remain anonymous for fear of his life. 'We are trying to bury the bodies around the hospitals because of the smell and because we are afraid of infection. Some of them shot in the head, some killed by bombing,' Samer adds. Samer described how, following a tit-for-tat slew of kidnappings, bloody battles have raged between Syria's Druze fighters and local Bedouin Arab armed factions. Damascus then sent troops to quell the fighting, but they were drawn into the violence and accused of widespread violations against the Druze. The Independent has repeatedly reached out to multiple branches of the new government for comment and has yet to receive a reply. Residents of the area told The Independent that Druze citizens had been shot at close range in their homes or in the streets by troops who appear to be government forces - videos shared online show people in military fatigues shooting dead men on their knees. In one video, which fact-checking website Verify Syria said it has verified, a group of men in fatigues force three men to jump off a balcony of a multi-storey building as they are shot. The Independent has been unable to independently confirm any of the videos but the death toll is climbing. Outside of combatant deaths in battle, the Syrian Network for Human Rights said more than 320 have been killed by summary executions, other forms of violence, and in Israeli strikes. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, another monitoring group, has reported a total death toll of at least 940 people. The United Nations says at least 87,000 people have been displaced within Suweida governorate and towards neighbouring Daraa. The area has been unable to receive much-needed humanitarian and medical aid due to ongoing clashes. After the initial heady celebration following the overthrow of longterm autocratic Bashar al-Assad in December by Islamist-led factions, cracks in Syria's diverse society have started to show—and deepen. The surge in violence underlines the challenges facing interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa, whose former militant faction Hayat Tahrir al-Sham—a onetime al-Qaeda affiliate that has distanced itself from its jihadi past - led the charge against Assad. But since then, he has struggled to assert control over the south and areas near the Israeli border. While Mr Sharaa has been buoyed by rapidly improving ties with global powers, including US President Donald Trump 's administration, the violence has highlighted lingering sectarian tensions and widespread distrust among minority groups towards his Islamist-led government. That distrust has only deepened following the mass killings of Alawites in March. Deadly clashes have now erupted in the south, with Syria's large Druze community accusing Bedouin tribes of kidnappings and summary executions. Experts warn that the Syrian government has done little to stop this. 'Instead of pursuing an inclusive, reconciliatory approach to reintegrate Suweida into the Syrian state… the authorities keep making the wrong choices,' said Armenak Tokmajyan, non-resident scholar at the Carnegie Middle East Center. He said that while there had been rounds of dialogue with powerful Druze leaders, the discussions were largely focused on disarming them. 'Despite divisions within the Druze community, most… were unwilling to hand over their weapons without clarity on the future shape of the state. Then came the recent escalation, which I think could have been averted had the authorities exercised self-restraint and not immediately resorted to violence.' This approach has backfired. Druze leaders who have taken a harder stance against the government, like influential Sheikh Hikmat al-Hijri - who had even been accused from within the Druze community of helping instigating the tensions and violence - are now gaining greater support. Amid this chaos, Israel has entered the fray. From the early days following Assad's ousting, Israel has been bombing military bases across the country. By day two, residents in Syria's restive southern borderlands told The Independent that Israeli forces were already conducting patrols. 'The Israelis took all the weapons from the people,' says Ahmed Hassoun, head of the municipality of Hader, a Druze town just 2.5 miles from the border with Israeli-occupied Golan. 'Most days they are here. It's become a fact for us. We can do nothing. Their forces are coming in and out—we are helpless. We are just civilians. What can we do with this reality?' Just a mile from the border area outside Hamidiyah town, Moussa, a local leader who is not Druze, spoke to The Independent next to a sandbank he said Israeli forces had clawed out of the earth. 'The only language Israel understands is force. But we want a peace deal between Israel and the new Syrian government—with conditions,' he said. In Suweida, Samer said that Israel's claims that it has come to the 'rescue' of the Druze has only stoked pre-existing sectarian tensions that have simmered and flared throughout the 13-year civil war. 'Just a few months after liberation, Israel has mixed the cards in the south,' he added. Israel fears a build-up of Islamist Sunni forces along its northern border, while simultaneously facing pressure from the Druze minority in Israel, who have been concerned about their kin across the border. More than half of the roughly 1 million Druze worldwide live in Syria. Most of the other Druze live in Lebanon and Israel, including in the Golan Heights, which Israel captured from Syria in the 1967 Mideast War and annexed in 1981. The Druze minority in Israel, many of whom serve in the Israeli military, are often fiercely loyal to the Israeli state but tensions with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu 's political party Likud have grown in recent years. With violence erupting in Suweida, Mr Netanyahu ordered the bombing of Syrian government forces and struck the Defence Ministry in Damascus last week, stating that the strikes were intended 'to save our Druze brothers and to eliminate the gangs of the regime.' He said Israel had established a policy demanding the demilitarisation of territory near the border, stretching from the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights to the Druze Mountain, east of Suweida. Israeli military expert Amos Harel told The Independent Israel was facing growing domestic pressure from its Druze minority. Some recently crossed the border, causing 'chaos' with Israeli border guards briefly losing control. The Israeli military issued a statement on Saturday saying it 'emphasises that crossing the border to Syria constitutes a criminal offence and endangers the public, as well as IDF soldiers.' 'I'm not sure there is a goal,' Harel said. 'The end result is yet unclear but the element that changes everything is the Trump administration.' The United States has stated it did not support the Israeli strikes. On Friday, an Israeli official said it had agreed to allow Syrian forces limited access to the Suweida area for two days. But many fear that this is just temporary and that Israel is trying to leverage internal domestic turmoil in Syria to keep it weak. In Hader, Druze leaders say they just want their 'normal rights' and decentralisation from Damascus. In Suweida, where a tentative ceasefire is fast collapsing, the biggest fear is yet more massacres. 'There is a ceasefire in place but five minutes ago government forces attacked one areas by drones,' says Samer, with desperation. 'The Druze people just want safety. They don't want to be afraid of other factions and sects. They don't want to separate from the rest of Syria. We want to live as citizens, without fear of others. That's it.'
Daily Mail
20 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
IDF launches huge new Gaza air raids and ground operation - as UK joins dozens of other nations demanding Israel end war and condemning 'inhumane killing'
Israel has launched a massive new air and ground operation against the Gaza Strip, targeting the enclave's main hub for humanitarian efforts as the UK joined 28 other nations in demanding the end of the war in the Middle East. As Foreign Secretary David Lammy, along with the foreign ministers of dozens of other western nations, described the suffering of civilians in Gaza as having 'reached new depths', witnesses in Deir al-Balah last night said they saw massive airstrikes. Local medics reported that three people were killed and dozens more were injured as Israeli tanks shelled homes and mosques in the area, in what appeared to be the latest effort to carve up the Palestinian territory with military corridors. The World Heath Organisation, meanwhile, accused the IDF of attacking its staff residence and main warehouse. It is the first time the IDF has pushed into Deir al-Balah, the only Gaza city that has not seen major ground operations or suffered widespread devastation in 21 months of war, leading to speculation that the Hamas militant group holds large numbers of hostages there. The main group representing hostages' families said it was 'shocked and alarmed' by the incursion and demanded answers from Israeli leaders. Israel says the seizure of territory in Gaza is aimed at pressuring Hamas to release hostages, but it is a major point of contention in ongoing ceasefire talks. The UN food agency, meanwhile, accused Israeli forces of firing on a crowd of Palestinians seeking humanitarian aid over the weekend. The Gaza Health Ministry called it one of the deadliest attacks on aid-seekers in the war that has driven the territory to the brink of famine. In the latest sign of international frustration, the United Kingdom, France and 23 other Western-aligned countries issued a statement saying 'the war in Gaza must end now.' They harshly criticized Israel's restrictions on humanitarian aid and called for the release of the 50 hostages remaining in Gaza. The countries in a joint statement condemned what they called the 'drip feeding of aid' to Palestinians in Gaza and said it was 'horrifying' that had been killed while seeking aid. The majority of those killed were in the vicinity of Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) sites, which the United States and Israel backed to take over aid distribution in Gaza from a network led by the United Nations. 'The Israeli government's aid delivery model is dangerous, fuels instability and deprives Gazans of human dignity,' the countries' foreign ministers said in a joint statement. 'The suffering of civilians in Gaza has reached new depths.' The call by about 20 European countries, as well as Canada, Australia and New Zealand, for an end to the war in Gaza and the delivery of aid comes from many countries which are allied with Israel and its most important backer, the United States. Among those calling for an end to the war are four out of five countries in the so-called Five Eyes intelligence-sharing alliance, which includes the U.S. Israel's foreign ministry said the statement was 'disconnected from reality' and it would send the wrong message to Hamas. 'The statement fails to focus the pressure on Hamas and fails to recognise Hamas's role and responsibility for the situation,' the Israeli statement said. Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar later said he spoke with his British counterpart David Lammy on Monday on regional issues, including Gaza. He blamed Hamas 'for the suffering of the population and the continuation of the war'. The U.S. ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, called the statement 'disgusting' and said blaming Israel was 'irrational' because Hamas rejects every proposal to end the war. Israel's campaign in Gaza has killed more than 59,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health authorities, with the latest deaths reported on Monday as Israel in central Gaza.
Sky News
an hour ago
- Sky News
Middle East latest: White House admits strikes in Gaza and Syria caught Trump 'off guard' - as he warns Iran
In Syria, security forces have been deployed to the outskirts of towns and villages in a bid to keep a recently-declared ceasefire intact. Security forces were seen near the town of Busra al Harir in the Daraa countryside to prevent tribal forces from advancing towards the Druze villages yesterday. The country's armed Bedouin clans announced that they had withdrawn from the Druze-majority city of Sweida after week-long clashes and a US-brokered ceasefire on Sunday. The clashes between militias of the Druze religious minority and the Sunni Muslim clans killed hundreds and threatened to unravel Syria's already fragile post-war transition. Israel also launched dozens of airstrikes in the Druze-majority Sweida province, targeting government forces who had effectively sided with the Bedouins. The clashes also led to a series of targeted sectarian attacks against the Druze community, followed by revenge attacks against the Bedouins. Yesterday, hundreds of Bedouin civilians were evacuated from Sweida as part of the truce, according to state media. Watch below: Analyst Michael Clarke explains who the Druze and Bedouin groups are
