Latest news with #Saqr
Al-Ahram Weekly
13-07-2025
- Politics
- Al-Ahram Weekly
Egypt, Indonesia discuss strengthening military cooperation - Defence
Minister of Defence and Military Production General Abdel Mageed Saqr discussed on Saturday ways to strengthen military cooperation between Egypt and Indonesia with his Indonesian counterpart Prabowo Subianto and his accompanying delegation during their official visit to Egypt. In an official welcoming ceremony, the Indonesian delegation arrived at the headquarters of the Ministry of Defence's General Secretariat, where the military band played the national anthems of both countries. During their meeting, Saqr and Subianto discussed several issues of mutual interest and explored ways to strengthen military cooperation across various domains. General Saqr praised the strong ties between the Egyptian and Indonesian Armed Forces and stressed the importance of coordinating efforts and expanding the horizons of future military collaboration to serve the shared interests of both nations. For his part, the Indonesian defence minister affirmed his country's keenness to bolster military relations and enhance the exchange of expertise between the two armed forces. Chief of Staff of the Egyptian Armed Forces Lieutenant General Ahmed Khalifa, several senior military officials from both sides, and the Indonesian ambassador and military attaché in Cairo attended the meeting. Follow us on: Facebook Instagram Whatsapp Short link:
The National
09-07-2025
- Health
- The National
Gaza aid workers overwhelmed by 'mass casualties' at aid sites
Medical officials said many people they are treating have been wounded by Israeli forces as they try to reach distribution sites run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) while others have been injured as huge crowds form around convoys sent into Gaza by the UN. Around 640 Palestinians have been killed and more than 4500 injured while seeking aid between May 27 and July 2, the Ministry of Health in Gaza said as it warned the health system in the region is close to collapse. Dr Mohammed Saqr, director of nursing at Gaza's Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis, told the Guardian he had witnessed countless mass casualty incidents in recent weeks. READ MORE: 'Everyone's here for the same reason': Kneecap fans at Glasgow gig rally around trio 'The scenes are truly shocking – they resemble the horrors of judgment day. Sometimes within just half an hour we receive over 100 to 150 cases, ranging from severe injuries to deaths,' he said. 'About 95% of these injuries and deaths come from food distribution centres – what are referred to as the 'American food distribution centres'.' Saqr added: 'Every bed is occupied by a patient, and these additional injuries place an unimaginable burden on us. 'We are forced to treat patients on the floor of the emergency department … Most of these injuries are gunshot wounds to the chest and head … Patients [are] with arriving with amputated legs and arms.' On Tuesday, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said doctors in Gaza had seen an unprecedented surge in mass casualty incidents linked to aid distribution sites over the last month. GHF, which runs the aid sites, were set up by the American and Israeli governments to control the flow of aid into Gaza after disputed claims that the UN-led system was seeing aid stolen by Hamas militants. The GHF's executive director, Johnnie Moore, an evangelical preacher and former adviser to Donald Trump, has previously called UN reports that hundreds of Palestinians had been killed trying to collect aid from his group 'disinformation'. Last week, more than 130 leading charities and non-governmental organisations operating in Gaza issued a joint call for an end to the 'deadly' GHF aid distribution scheme. Since the launch of the GHF aid distribution system, the ICRC's 60-bed field hospital in Rafah, in the south of Gaza, has treated more than 2200 weapon-wounded patients and has registered more than 200 deaths. 'The scale and frequency of these incidents are without precedent. In just over a month, the number of patients treated has surpassed the total seen in all mass casualty events during the entire previous year,' the ICRC said in a statement. 'Among the wounded are toddlers, teenagers, elderly, mothers – and overwhelmingly, young men and boys. Most say they were simply trying to get food or aid for their families.' An 86-bed field hospital run by UK-Med in al-Mawasi,in southern Gaza, also received many casualties who were seeking aid when they were attacked. Dr Clare Jeffreys, a British emergency medicine specialist who is working at the hospital, said: 'Since I arrived there have been a lot of gunshot injuries. They tell me how they were injured, and say it was at or near food distribution sites.'
DW
01-07-2025
- Politics
- DW
Will Syrian war criminals ever face justice? – DW – 06/30/2025
After an alleged war criminal was set free, Syrians are questioning whether their new interim government genuinely wants justice after 14 years of civil war. The gruesome video first made global headlines three years ago. At around six minutes long, the film clip, leaked by a former militiaman loyal to deposed Syrian dictator Bashar Assad, showed the massacre of at least 41 men. Blindfolded, they were coaxed, pushed, or forced into a mass grave, where they fell onto the corpses of those who'd been killed before them, before being shot themselves. The killings, filmed in 2013, took place in a suburb of Damascus called Tadamon and locals suspect many more could have been killed here in the same way by Assad regime forces. Thousands of Syrians are still missing after the war ended in late 2024. Earlier this June, the Tadamon massacre, as it is now known, was back in the news again. Syria's Committee for Civil Peace — set up to ease community divisions after violence directed at minorities in March — had released dozens of former Assad regime soldiers. Among them, a man called Fadi Saqr, who had previously led an Assad-loyalist paramilitary group known as the National Defense Forces in Tadamon. They were allegedly responsible for the massacre in the video. Syrians who had hoped for justice were incensed about the release of Saqr and others, and called for protests. Saqr told the he'd only been appointed to lead the paramilitary after the Tadamon massacre, and the head of the Committee for Civil Peace told local media the decision to free Saqr and others had been made in the interests of peace and reconciliation. Saqr is apparently trying to persuade other former Assad regime supporters to back the new Syrian government. "Achieving transitional justice in Syriais likely to take a long time," says Alaa Bitar, a teacher from Idlib who lost his brother in the Assad regime's prisons. But releasing such well-known figures without some sort of clarification is only going to make victims upset and everyone else angry, he told DW. The controversy has raised further questions about the transitional justice process the new Syrian government has committed to. In May, the head of Syria's interim government, Ahmad al-Sharaa, issued two presidential decrees, number 19 and number 20, establishing two commissions: the National Commission for Transitional Justice, or NCTJ, and the National Commission for the Missing and Forcibly Disappeared, or NCM. The NCTJ came in for criticism almost immediately. The language of the decree seems to indicate the commission would mainly be going after Assad regime allies. They are responsible for the bulk of crimes committed during the civil war. "The [NCTJ's] mandate, as laid out in the decree, is troublingly narrow and excludes many victims," Alice Autin of Human Rights Watch's international justice program wrote shortly afterwards. Amnesty International and Syrian rights groups were similarly critical. "By anchoring its mandate solely to one perpetrator group, the decree forecloses the possibility of investigating atrocities committed by other actors, some of whom are still active and influential in transitional institutions today," Syrian human rights activist Mustafa Haid pointed out in a text for , a Swiss-funded media outlet specializing in transitional justice issues, last week. Critics note that crimes were committed on all sides, including by the extremist "Islamic State" group and anti-Assad rebel groups. Al-Sharaa previously led one of these, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham. "Some view the focus on the crimes of the Assad regime as fair and long overdue," Joumana Seif, a Syrian lawyer working with the Berlin-based European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights, wrote recently. "Others, however, have strongly criticized the apparent discrimination among victims." Beyond problems with the objectives of the initial decree, since then there's been a troubling lack of transparency and progress, observers say. "In my opinion, the transitional justice process is not going well," Mohammad al-Abdallah, director of the Washington-based Syrian Justice and Accountability Center, told DW. "The NCTJ is lagging behind. Just compare it to the missing persons commission, which was established by the same government on the same day. It's more public, they've started technical discussions and are drafting a plan to search for the missing." Meanwhile the NCTJ is more secretive, al-Abdallah noted. "There's no comprehensive plan or understanding about why the arrest — or non-arrest — of certain people is happening. Basically nothing is transparent and there's very little trust." Of course, the mission to find missing Syrians is much easier for the state than achieving transitional justice, he argues. "The humanitarian nature of this mission [to find the missing], the vast majority of the responsibility is on Assad's security agencies, there's no trial and no headache for the government," al-Abdallah said. "It's a win-win situation for them, while transitional justice is much harder." Of course, nobody is saying that the interim government can achieve justice in a matter of months or that they should arrest everybody, al-Abdallah continued. And certainly, observers say, Syrians have different ideas of what justice could be. "People do not necessarily want their suffering retold," one participant at a recent workshop held in Damascus by the Syrians for Truth and Justice group pointed out. "Some seek material and moral compensation while others want to see executions in public squares.' But what's happening now could actually be making things worse. "The government's slow response to pursuing criminals, coupled with the release of individuals accused of serious crimes — often without trial or explanation — has severely eroded public trust," Haid Haid, a consulting fellow with the Middle East program at British think tank Chatham House wrote for London-based media outlet last week. "In the void left by these failures, many have turned to their own means of justice." Haid described a wave of assassinations in the southwestern city of Daraa as "a form of vigilante justice — long-standing scores settled with bullets instead of due process." In May, the Syrian Network for Human Rights documented 157 extrajudicial killings in Syria and experts suggest that around 70% of them are the result of some kind of vigilante justice or targeted killing. Often these involve former Assad regime supporters. Al-Abdallah says he's heard the government may conduct three or four major trials soon, after which there will be more focus on national peace building. "Which is obviously important too," he argues. "But to put peace-building in confrontation with justice, that's a fake choice." Syrian lawyers have already argued that decisions about people like Fadi Saqr made by the Committee for Civil Peace infringe on the NCTJ's jurisdiction. "We want justice and peace, and we can do both," al-Abdallah says. "You will not have a lasting peace if you don't have some elements of justice. But the government doesn't seem to be willing to accept that." 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Time of India
01-07-2025
- Politics
- Time of India
No justice, no peace: Will Syrian war criminals be punished?
No justice, no peace (Image: AP) The gruesome video first made global headlines three years ago. At around six minutes long, the film clip, leaked by a former militiaman loyal to deposed Syrian dictator Bashar Assad, showed the massacre of at least 41 men. Blindfolded, they were coaxed, pushed, or forced into a mass grave, where they fell onto the corpses of those who'd been killed before them, before being shot themselves. The killings, filmed in 2013, took place in a suburb of Damascus called Tadamon and locals suspect many more could have been killed here in the same way by Assad regime forces. Thousands of Syrians are still missing after the war ended in late 2024. Earlier this June, the Tadamon massacre, as it is now known, was back in the news again. Syria's Committee for Civil Peace — set up to ease community divisions after violence directed at minorities in March — had released dozens of former Assad regime soldiers. Among them, a man called Fadi Saqr, who had previously led an Assad-loyalist paramilitary group known as the National Defence Forces in Tadamon. They were allegedly responsible for the massacre in the video. Released in 'interests of peace and reconciliation' Syrians who had hoped for justice were incensed about the release of Saqr and others, and called for protests. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like 집에서 할수 있는 부업! 월 평균 148만원 부업 하실 분 찾습니다 메리츠파트너스 더 알아보기 Undo Saqr told the New York Times he'd only been appointed to led the paramilitary after the Tadamon massacre, and the head of the Committee for Civil Peace told local media the decision to free Saqr and others had been made in the interests of peace and reconciliation. Saqr is apparently trying to persuade other former Assad regime supporters to back the new Syrian government. "Achieving transitional justice in Syriais likely to take a long time," says Alaa Bitar, a teacher from Idlib who lost his brother in the Assad regime's prisons. But releasing such well known figures without some sort of clarification is only going to make victims upset and everyone else angry, he told DW. The controversy has raised further questions about the transitional justice process the new Syrian government has committed to. In May, the head of Syria's interim government, Ahmad al-Sharaa, issued two presidential decrees, number 19 and number 20, establishing two commissions: the National Commission for Transitional Justice, or NCTJ, and the National Commission for the Missing and Forcibly Disappeared, or NCM. The NCTJ came in for criticism almost immediately. The language of the decree seems to indicate the commission would mainly be going after Assad regime allies. They are responsible for the bulk of crimes committed during the civil war. "The [NCTJ's] mandate, as laid out in the decree, is troublingly narrow and excludes many victims," Alice Autin of Human Rights Watch's international justice program wrote shortly afterwards. Amnesty International and Syrian rights groups were similarly critical. "By anchoring its mandate solely to one perpetrator group, the decree forecloses the possibility of investigating atrocities committed by other actors, some of whom are still active and influential in transitional institutions today," Syrian human rights activist Mustafa Haid pointed out in a text for Justice Info, a Swiss-funded media outlet specializing in transitional justice issues, last week. Critics note that crimes were committed on all sides, including by the extremist "Islamic State" group and anti-Assad rebel groups. Al-Sharaa previously led one of these, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham. "Some view the focus on the crimes of the Assad regime as fair and long overdue," Joumana Seif, a Syrian lawyer working with the Berlin-based European Centre for Constitutional and Human Rights, wrote recently. "Others, however, have strongly criticized the apparent discrimination among victims." Transitional justice committee: no trust Beyond problems with the objectives of the initial decree, since then there's been a troubling lack of transparency and progress, observers say. "In my opinion, the transitional justice process is not going well," Mohammad al-Abdallah, director of the Washington-based Syrian Justice and Accountability Centre, told DW. "The NCTJ is lagging behind. Just compare it to the missing persons commission, which was established by the same government on the same day. It's more public, they've started technical discussions and are drafting a plan to search for the missing. " Meanwhile the NCTJ is more secretive, al-Abdallah noted. "There's no comprehensive plan or understanding about why the arrest — or non-arrest — of certain people is happening. Basically nothing is transparent and there's very little trust." Of course, the mission to find missing Syrians is much easier for the state than achieving transitional justice, he argues. "The humanitarian nature of this mission [to find the missing], the vast majority of the responsibility is on Assad's security agencies, there's no trial and no headache for the government," al-Abdallah said. "It's a win-win situation for them, while transitional justice is much harder." Of course, nobody is saying that the interim government can achieve justice in a matter of months or that they should arrest everybody, al-Abdallah continued. And certainly, observers say, Syrians have different ideas of what justice could be. "People do not necessarily want their suffering retold," one participant at a recent workshop held in Damascus by the Syrians for Truth and Justice group pointed out. "Some seek material and moral compensation while others want to see executions in public squares.' B ut what's happening now could actually be making things worse. Increase in vigilante justice "The government's slow response to pursuing criminals, coupled with the release of individuals accused of serious crimes — often without trial or explanation — has severely eroded public trust," Haid Haid, a consulting fellow with the Middle East program at British think tank Chatham House wrote for London-based media outlet Al Majalla last week. "In the void left by these failures, many have turned to their own means of justice. " Haid described a wave of assassinations in the southwestern city of Daraa as "a form of vigilante justice — long-standing scores settled with bullets instead of due process." In May, the Syrian Network for Human Rights documented 157 extrajudicial killings in Syria and experts suggest that around 70 percent of them are the result of some kind of vigilante justice or targeted killing. Often these involve former Assad regime supporters. Al-Abdallah says he's heard the government may conduct three or four major trials soon, after which there will be more focus on national peace building. "Which is obviously important too," he argues. "But to put peace-building in confrontation with justice, that's a fake choice." Syrian lawyers have already argued that decisions about people like Fadi Saqr made by the Committee for Civil Peace infringe on the NCTJ's jurisdiction. "We want justice and peace, and we can do both," al-Abdallah says. "You will not have a lasting peace if you don't have some elements of justice. But the government doesn't seem to be willing to accept that."
DW
30-06-2025
- Politics
- DW
No justice, no peace: Will Syrian war criminals be punished? – DW – 06/30/2025
After an alleged war criminal was set free, Syrians are questioning whether their new interim government genuinely wants justice after 14 years of civil war. As a result of such doubts, vigilante justice is on the rise. The gruesome video first made global headlines three years ago. At around six minutes long, the film clip, leaked by a former militiaman loyal to deposed Syrian dictator Bashar Assad, showed the massacre of at least 41 men. Blindfolded, they were coaxed, pushed, or forced into a mass grave, where they fell onto the corpses of those who'd been killed before them, before being shot themselves. The killings, filmed in 2013, took place in a suburb of Damascus called Tadamon and locals suspect many more could have been killed here in the same way by Assad regime forces. Thousands of Syrians are still missing after the war ended in late 2024. Earlier this June, the Tadamon massacre, as it is now known, was back in the news again. Syria's Committee for Civil Peace — set up to ease community divisions after violence directed at minorities in March — had released dozens of former Assad regime soldiers. Among them, a man called Fadi Saqr, who had previously led an Assad-loyalist paramilitary group known as the National Defense Forces in Tadamon. They were allegedly responsible for the massacre in the video. Syrians who had hoped for justice were incensed about the release of Saqr and others, and called for protests. Saqr told the he'd only been appointed to led the paramilitary after the Tadamon massacre, and the head of the Committee for Civil Peace told local media the decision to free Saqr and others had been made in the interests of peace and reconciliation. Saqr is apparently trying to persuade other former Assad regime supporters to back the new Syrian government. "Achieving transitional justice in Syriais likely to take a long time," says Alaa Bitar, a teacher from Idlib who lost his brother in the Assad regime's prisons. But releasing such well known figures without some sort of clarification is only going to make victims upset and everyone else angry, he told DW. The controversy has raised further questions about the transitional justice process the new Syrian government has committed to. In May, the head of Syria's interim government, Ahmad al-Sharaa, issued two presidential decrees, number 19 and number 20, establishing two commissions: the National Commission for Transitional Justice, or NCTJ, and the National Commission for the Missing and Forcibly Disappeared, or NCM. The NCTJ came in for criticism almost immediately. The language of the decree seems to indicate the commission would mainly be going after Assad regime allies. They are responsible for the bulk of crimes committed during the civil war. "The [NCTJ's] mandate, as laid out in the decree, is troublingly narrow and excludes many victims," Alice Autin of Human Rights Watch's international justice program wrote shortly afterwards. Amnesty International and Syrian rights groups were similarly critical. "By anchoring its mandate solely to one perpetrator group, the decree forecloses the possibility of investigating atrocities committed by other actors, some of whom are still active and influential in transitional institutions today," Syrian human rights activist Mustafa Haid pointed out in a text for , a Swiss-funded media outlet specializing in transitional justice issues, last week. Critics note that crimes were committed on all sides, including by the extremist "Islamic State" group and anti-Assad rebel groups. Al-Sharaa previously led one of these, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham. "Some view the focus on the crimes of the Assad regime as fair and long overdue," Joumana Seif, a Syrian lawyer working with the Berlin-based European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights, wrote recently. "Others, however, have strongly criticized the apparent discrimination among victims." Beyond problems with the objectives of the initial decree, since then there's been a troubling lack of transparency and progress, observers say. "In my opinion, the transitional justice process is not going well," Mohammad al-Abdallah, director of the Washington-based Syrian Justice and Accountability Center, told DW. "The NCTJ is lagging behind. Just compare it to the missing persons commission, which was established by the same government on the same day. It's more public, they've started technical discussions and are drafting a plan to search for the missing." Meanwhile the NCTJ is more secretive, al-Abdallah noted. "There's no comprehensive plan or understanding about why the arrest — or non-arrest — of certain people is happening. Basically nothing is transparent and there's very little trust." Of course, the mission to find missing Syrians is much easier for the state than achieving transitional justice, he argues. "The humanitarian nature of this mission [to find the missing], the vast majority of the responsibility is on Assad's security agencies, there's no trial and no headache for the government," al-Abdallah said. "It's a win-win situation for them, while transitional justice is much harder." Of course, nobody is saying that the interim government can achieve justice in a matter of months or that they should arrest everybody, al-Abdallah continued. And certainly, observers say, Syrians have different ideas of what justice could be. "People do not necessarily want their suffering retold," one participant at a recent workshop held in Damascus by the Syrians for Truth and Justice group pointed out. "Some seek material and moral compensation while others want to see executions in public squares.' But what's happening now could actually be making things worse. "The government's slow response to pursuing criminals, coupled with the release of individuals accused of serious crimes — often without trial or explanation — has severely eroded public trust," Haid Haid, a consulting fellow with the Middle East program at British think tank Chatham House wrote for London-based media outlet last week. "In the void left by these failures, many have turned to their own means of justice." Haid described a wave of assassinations in the southwestern city of Daraa as "a form of vigilante justice — long-standing scores settled with bullets instead of due process." In May, the Syrian Network for Human Rights documented 157 extrajudicial killings in Syria and experts suggest that around 70% of them are the result of some kind of vigilante justice or targeted killing. Often these involve former Assad regime supporters. Al-Abdallah says he's heard the government may conduct three or four major trials soon, after which there will be more focus on national peace building. "Which is obviously important too," he argues. "But to put peace-building in confrontation with justice, that's a fake choice." Syrian lawyers have already argued that decisions about people like Fadi Saqr made by the Committee for Civil Peace infringe on the NCTJ's jurisdiction. "We want justice and peace, and we can do both," al-Abdallah says. "You will not have a lasting peace if you don't have some elements of justice. But the government doesn't seem to be willing to accept that." To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video
