Syrian Embassy In Lebanon Suspends Services After Assad Relatives’ Arrest In Beirut

BEIRUT (AP) — Syria’s embassy in Lebanon suspended consular providers Saturday, a day after two kinfolk of deposed Syrian President Bashar Assad have been arrested on the Beirut airport with allegedly solid passports.

Additionally on Saturday, Lebanese authorities handed over dozens of Syrians — together with former officers within the Syrian military beneath Assad — to the brand new Syrian authorities after they have been caught illegally coming into Lebanon, a struggle monitor and Lebanese officers stated.

The embassy introduced on its Facebook web page that consular work was suspended “till additional discover” on the order of the Syrian international ministry. The announcement didn’t give a cause for the suspension.

Two Lebanese safety officers, who spoke on situation of anonymity as a result of they weren’t approved to talk publicly, stated the suspension was ordered as a result of the passports belonging to Assad’s relatives — the wife and daughter of one of his cousins — were believed to have been forged on the embassy.

Assad’s uncle, Rifaat Assad — who has been indicted in Switzerland on expenses of struggle crimes and crimes in opposition to humanity — had flown out the day earlier than on his actual passport and was not stopped, the officers stated.

The U.Ok.-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported Saturday that 70 Syrians, together with former military officers, have been handed over by a Lebanese safety delegation to the safety forces of the brand new Syrian authorities, led by the previous rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS. Three Lebanese judicial officers, talking on situation of anonymity, confirmed the report.

Regional international locations have been fast to ascertain ties with Syria’s new rulers. Delegations of Libyan and Bahraini officers arrived in Damascus on Saturday on official visits.

HTS chief Ahmad al-Sharaa, previously often called Abu Mohammed al-Golani, has largely succeeded in calming fears inside and outdoors of Syria that his group would unleash collective punishment in opposition to communities that supported Assad’s rule or try and impose strict Islamic legislation on the nation’s non secular minorities.

Nonetheless, in latest days, sporadic clashes have damaged out between the HTS-led safety forces and pro-Assad armed teams. The nation’s new safety forces have launched a sequence of raids focusing on officers affiliated with Assad and have arrange checkpoints in areas with important populations of the Alawite non secular minority to which the previous president belongs to seek for weapons.

There have additionally been ongoing tensions and clashes in northeastern Syria between Kurdish-led forces and armed teams backed by Turkey. Many Kurds have considered the brand new order in Damascus, which seems to have strengthened Turkey’s hand in Syria, with anxiousness.

Ankara sees the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces — a key U.S. ally within the struggle in opposition to the Islamic State group — as an affiliate of its sworn enemy, the Kurdistan Employees’ Get together, or PKK, which it classifies as a terrorist group.

The U.S. State Division stated Saturday that Secretary of State Antony Blinken had spoken with Turkish Overseas Minister Hakan Fidan to “talk about the newest developments in Syria.”

“Secretary Blinken emphasised the necessity to help a Syrian-led and Syrian-owned political course of that upholds human rights and prioritizes an inclusive and consultant authorities,” the assertion stated, including that they “additionally mentioned the shared aim of stopping terrorism from endangering the safety” of Turkey and Syria.

On Saturday, a whole bunch of protesters convened by Kurdish girls’s teams participated in an indication within the northeastern metropolis of Hasaka to demand girls’s rights within the new Syria.

Perishan Ramadan, a participant from Hasaka, stated the brand new authorities “is worse than Bashar” and that its leaders are Islamist extremists who “don’t settle for any function for ladies.”

Whereas the nation’s new leaders haven’t tried to impose Islamic gown or different conventions, it stays to be seen what function girls can have within the new order and whether or not they may maintain political or authorities positions.

“Girls have to be current within the new structure for Syria,” stated Rihan Loqo, spokeswoman for the Kongra Star girls’s group. ”… Girls’s rights shouldn’t be ignored.”

Related Press writers Hogir Abdo in Hasaka, Syria, and Ellen Knickmeyer in Washington contributed to this report.