Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said yesterday he is confident of victory against rebels in a devastating 28-month-old civil war that has killed more than 100,000 people and sent nearly 2 million fleeing abroad.
Insurgents have seized large swathes of territory, but al-Assad’s forces have staged a counteroffensive in recent weeks, pushing them back from around the capital Damascus and retaking several towns near the border with Lebanon.
“If we were not sure that we were going to win in Syria, we would not have the ability to resist and the ability to continue fighting for more than two years against the enemy,” state news agency SANA quoted al-Assad as saying.
Al-Assad has framed the revolt against four decades of his family’s rule as a foreign-backed conspiracy fought by Islamist “terrorists.” When pro-democracy protests started in March 2011, a military crackdown eventually led to an armed insurrection.
Addressing officers on the 68th anniversary of the Syrian army’s creation, al-Assad said soldiers had shown “courage in the face of terrorism ... and the fiercest barbaric war in modern history.”
UN investigators say al-Assad’s forces have carried out war crimes, including unlawful killing, torture, sexual violence, indiscriminate attacks and pillaging in what appears to be a state-directed policy. They say rebels have also committed war crimes, including executions, but on a lesser scale.
Meanwhile, the UN announced on Wednesday that experts would travel to Syria as soon as possible to investigate three alleged incidents of chemical weapons attacks.
UN spokesman Martin Nesirky in New York said the green light for the investigation followed “the understanding reached with the government of Syria” during last week’s visit to Damascus by UN disarmament chief Angela Kane and the head of the chemical weapons investigation team, Ake Sellstrom.
Australians were downloading virtual private networks (VPNs) in droves, while one of the world’s largest porn distributors said it was blocking users from its platforms as the country yesterday rolled out sweeping online age restriction. Australia in December became the first country to impose a nationwide ban on teenagers using social media. A separate law now requires artificial intelligence (AI)-powered chatbot services to keep certain content — including pornography, extreme violence and self-harm and eating disorder material — from minors or face fines of up to A$49.5 million (US$34.6 million). The country also joined Britain, France and dozens of US states requiring
Hungarian authorities temporarily detained seven Ukrainian citizens and seized two armored cars carrying tens of millions of euros in cash across Hungary on suspicion of money laundering, officials said on Friday. The Ukrainians were released on Friday, following their detention on Thursday, but Hungarian officials held onto the cash, prompting Ukraine to accuse Hungary’s Russia-friendly government of illegally seizing the money. “We will not tolerate this state banditism,” Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said. The seven detained Ukrainians were employees of the Ukrainian state-owned Oschadbank, who were traveling in the two armored cars that were carrying the money between Austria and
Kosovar President Vjosa Osmani on Friday after dissolving the Kosovar parliament said a snap election should be held as soon as possible to avoid another prolonged political crisis in the Balkan country at a time of global turmoil. Osmani said it is important for Kosovo to wrap up the upcoming election process and form functional institutions for political stability as the war rages in the Middle East. “Precisely because the geopolitical situation is that complex, it is important to finish this electoral process which is coming up,” she said. “It is very hard now to imagine what will happen next.” Kosovo, which declared
MORE BANS: Australia last year required sites to remove accounts held by under-16s, with a few countries pushing for similar action at an EU level and India considering its own ban Indonesia on Friday said it would ban social media access for children under 16, citing threats from online pornography, cyberbullying, online fraud and Internet addiction. “Accounts belonging to children under 16 on high-risk platforms will start to be deactivated, beginning with YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, X, Bigo Live and Roblox,” Indonesian Minister of Communications and Digital Meutya Hafid said. “The government is stepping in so that parents no longer have to fight alone against the giants of the algorithm. Implementation will begin on March 28, 2026,” she said. The social media ban would be introduced in stages “until all platforms fulfill their
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