A Syrian Muslim cleric called for national unity on Friday following a week of clashes between Arabs and Kurds that left 25 people dead and more than 100 wounded in northern Syrian towns.
Salah Kuftaro, the son of Syria's Grand Mufti Ahmad Kuftaro, said in a Friday sermon that the riots were a "strange phenomenon" that should not be generalized.
"The Kurds must not be viewed as troublemakers," said Kuftaro, imam of the Abu al-Nour Mosque in Damascus. "The Kurds are honest citizens and we will not allow [anybody] to say Arabs and Kurds. We are all Syrians."
The violence began March 12 with a brawl between supporters of rival soccer teams before a match in Qamishli, 775km northeast of Damascus. One team had many Kurdish players, the other had Arab players.
The fighting continued the next day when Kurds went on the rampage during a funeral for the riot victims, and it spread to Hasakah, a city 80km southwest of Qamishli.
On Tuesday, Kurds battled Arab policemen in Syria's second biggest city, Aleppo, 320km north of Damascus, and the nearby town of Afreen.
In the government's first report on casualties, Syrian Interior Minister Ali Hammoud said Thursday that a total of 25 people were killed in the violence, 19 of them in Hasakah and nearby cities and six in Aleppo.
The government has blamed the violence on what it calls "mobs and opportunists" who have been influenced from abroad, and Kuftaro repeated those claims.
"We are subjected to a major conspiracy that aims to harm us from inside after the failure of external plots," Kuftaro said. "Syria has long been an example of national coherence."
Also Friday, hundreds of Kurds demonstrated in a suburb near Damascus denouncing what they called "some demagogues who infiltrated Syrian areas" during last week's clashes.
Participants in the apparently pro-government march in the predominantly Kurdish suburb of Dumar, 8km west of Damascus, affirmed their adherence to national unity and condemned "threats and pressures" against their country.
The Al-Thawra government newspaper called on the government to act firmly against "any move or behavior that may harm national unity."
Kurds comprise about 1.5 million of Syria's 18.5 million people and live mostly in the underdeveloped provinces of Qamishli and Hasakah.
In a statement faxed to reporters, the New York-based Human Rights Watch criticized the Syrian government's handling of the riots and said it should take immediate steps to curb excessive use of force and halt mass arrests following the unrest.
"Syria's Kurds have endured decades of severe discrimination under Baath Party rule," said Joe Stork, acting executive director of the Middle East and North Africa division of Human Rights Watch.
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
SUPPORT: The Australian prime minister promised to back Kyiv against Russia’s invasion, saying: ‘That’s my government’s position. It was yesterday. It still is’ Left-leaning Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday basked in his landslide election win, promising a “disciplined, orderly” government to confront cost-of-living pain and tariff turmoil. People clapped as the 62-year-old and his fiancee, Jodie Haydon, who visited his old inner Sydney haunt, Cafe Italia, surrounded by a crowd of jostling photographers and journalists. Albanese’s Labor Party is on course to win at least 83 seats in the 150-member parliament, partial results showed. Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s conservative Liberal-National coalition had just 38 seats, and other parties 12. Another 17 seats were still in doubt. “We will be a disciplined, orderly