The Biden administration said Friday it has decided not to pursue a $10 million reward it had offered for the capture of a Syrian rebel leader whose forces led the ouster of President Bashar Assad earlier this month.
The announcement followed a meeting in Damascus between the leader of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, Ahmad al-Sharaa, who was once aligned with al-Qaida, and the top US diplomat for the Middle East, Barbara Leaf, who led the first US diplomatic delegation into Syria since Assad's ouster.
HTS remains designated a foreign terrorist organisation, and Leaf would not say if sanctions stemming from that designation would be eased. But, she told reporters that al-Sharaa had committed to renouncing terrorism and as a result the US would no longer offer the reward.We discussed the critical need to ensure terrorist groups cannot pose a threat inside Syria or externally, including to the US and our partners in the region, she said.
Based on our discussion, I told him that we would not be pursuing the Rewards for Justice reward offered, Leaf said in a telephone news conference from Jordan where she travelled after visiting Syria.
Leaf and other US officials have said al-Sharaa's public statements about protecting minority and women's rights are welcomed, but they remain sceptical that he will follow through on them in the long run.
He came across as pragmatic, she said. It was a good first meeting. We will judge by deeds not just by words.
The US delegation's visit was aimed at pushing for an inclusive government and seeking information on the whereabouts of missing American journalist Austin Tice.
Along with Leaf, former special envoy for Syria Daniel Rubinstein and the Biden administration's chief envoy for hostage negotiations, Roger Carstens, joined the meetings with interim leaders and members of civil society.
Carstens said there was no new information confirming Tice's fate or whereabouts but vowed that efforts to find him would continue. He travelled previously to Lebanon to seek information. More US officials are expected to visit Syria in the coming days to pick up the search, he said.
We're going to be like bulldogs on this, Carstens said, adding that the US was focusing on about six prisons where it believed Tice may have been held in the past. He said the US also had information about three more prisons where Tice might have been incarcerated, and up to 40 sites may end up being examined for evidence of Tice's presence.
Tice, who has had his work published by The Washington Post, McClatchy newspapers and others, disappeared at a checkpoint in a contested area west of Damascus as the Syrian civil war intensified.
A video released weeks after Tice went missing showed him blindfolded and held by armed men and saying, Oh, Jesus. He has not been heard from since. Assad's government publicly denied that it was holding him.
Leaf's team was the first group of American diplomats to formally visit Syria in more than a decade, since the US shuttered its embassy in Damascus in 2012, although a small number of US diplomats had been assigned to political advisory roles with military units inside Syria since then.
Shortly before the delegation arrived in Damascus, the US military said it had conducted airstrikes in northeastern Syria on Thursday, killing a leader of the Islamic State group and one other militant. The strike was part of an ongoing effort to prevent IS insurgents from taking advantage of the upheaval in Syria, including any plan to release the more than 8,000 IS prisoners held in detention by Kurds who have partnered with the US, Central Command said in a statement.
The Pentagon revealed Thursday that the US had doubled the number of its forces in Syria to fight IS before Assad's fall. There are roughly 2,000 there now.
The diplomats' visit to Damascus will not result in the immediate reopening of the US embassy, which is under the protection of the Czech government, according to US officials, who said decisions on diplomatic recognition will be made when the new Syrian authorities make their intentions clear.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Friday looked set to lose power early next year after a key ally said he would move to bring down the minority Liberal government and trigger an election.
New Democratic Party leader Jagmeet Singh, who has been helping keep Trudeau in office, said he would present a formal motion of no-confidence after the House of Commons elected chamber returns from a winter break on Jan. 27.
If all the opposition parties back the motion, Trudeau will be out of office after more than nine years as prime minister and an election will take place.A string of polls over the last 18 months show the Liberals, suffering from voter fatigue and anger over high prices and a housing crisis, would be badly defeated by the official opposition right-of-center Conservatives.A string of polls over the last 18 months show the Liberals, suffering from voter fatigue and anger over high prices and a housing crisis, would be badly defeated by the official opposition right-of-center Conservatives.
The New Democrats, who like the Liberals aim to attract the support of center-left voters, complain Trudeau is too beholden to big business.
“No matter who is leading the Liberal Party, this government’s time is up. We will put forward a clear motion of non-confidence in the next sitting of the House of Commons,” said Singh.
The leader of the Bloc Quebecois, a larger opposition party, promised to back the motion and said there was no scenario where Trudeau survived.The Conservatives said they would ask Governor General Mary Simon – the personal representative of King Charles, Canada’s head of state – to recall Parliament to hold a no-confidence vote before the end of the year. Constitutional experts say Simon would reject such a move.
“We cannot have a chaotic clown show running our government into the ground. What is clear is that Justin Trudeau does not have the confidence of Parliament,” Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre told reporters.
Shortly after Singh issued his letter a smiling Trudeau, under growing pressure to quit after the shock resignation of his finance minister this week, presided over a cabinet shuffle.
Trudeau’s office was not immediately available for comment.
Trudeau, who has not publicly spoken about Freeland’s exit, usually addresses reporters after cabinet shuffles but left without saying a word. Major domestic media organizations said his office had canceled traditional end-of-year interviews.Votes on budgets and other spending are considered confidence measures. Additionally, the government must allocate a few days each session to opposition parties when they can unveil motions on any matter, including non-confidence.
Singh’s move is a political risk, since the polls showing a bad defeat for the Liberals also have bad news for the NDP.
Darrell Bricker, CEO of polling firm Ipsos-Reid, said Singh saw a chance to replace the Liberals as the first choice for voters who opposed the Conservatives.
“Waiting to give the Liberals and even Trudeau a chance to get off the mat is ill-advised,” he said by email.Before Singh made his announcement, a source close to Trudeau said the prime minister would take the Christmas break to ponder his future and was unlikely to make any announcement before January.
Liberal leaders are elected by special conventions of party members, which take months to arrange.
Singh’s promise to act quickly means that even if Trudeau were to resign now, the Liberals could not find a new permanent leader in time for the next election. The party would then have to contest the vote with an interim leader, which has never happened before in Canada.The timing of the crisis comes at a critical time, since U.S. President-elect Donald Trump is due to take office on Jan. 20 and is promising to impose a 25% tariff on all imports from Canada, which would badly hurt the economy.The premiers of the 10 provinces, seeking to create a united approach to the tariffs, are complaining about what they call the chaos in Ottawa.
Just two days after the United States slapped sanctions on four Pakistani entities on charges of them contributing to Pakistan’s ballistic missile programme, the latter condemned the move, labelling them as “discriminatory” and warning of potential risks to regional peace and security.
Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a strong statement on Thursday, cautioning that the sanctions could have “dangerous implications for the strategic stability of our region and beyond”, as reported by Al-Jazeera.
The US sanctions, which come in light of the continuing proliferation threat of Pakistan’s long-range missile development, froze all US-based assets belonging to targeted Pakistani businesses and prohibited American entities from engaging in trade with them.
According to the US Department of State, one of the sanctioned organisations, the Islamabad-based National Development Complex (NDC), was involved in acquiring materials for Pakistan’s long-range ballistic missile programme, which includes the SHAHEEN series. Three other entities—Akhtar and Sons Private Limited, Affiliates International, and Rockside Enterprise—were also sanctioned for their alleged involvement in weapons proliferation.
In its response, Pakistan’s foreign ministry dismissed the allegations as baseless. “These sanctions are based on mere doubts and suspicion without any evidence whatsoever,” the ministry said, adding that such actions reflect “double standards,” especially when the US grants waivers for advanced military technologies to other nations, Al-Jazeera reported.
The sanctions follow similar measures imposed earlier this year on foreign entities, including a Chinese research institute, accused of supporting the programme.
‘Emerging threat to the US’
Jon Finer, the US Deputy National Security Adviser, has also raised concerns about Pakistan’s advancing missile technology. Speaking at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Finer stated that Islamabad’s long-range ballistic missile capabilities could potentially threaten targets outside South Asia, including the United States, news agency Reuters reported.
“Candidly, it’s hard for us to see Pakistan’s actions as anything other than an emerging threat to the United States,” Finer remarked. He also noted that the country has pursued “increasingly sophisticated missile technology, from long-range ballistic missile systems to equipment, that would enable the testing of significantly larger rocket motors,” Reuters quoted.
“If these trends continue,” Finer warned, “Pakistan will have the capability to strike targets well beyond South Asia, including in the United States.”
Pakistan as a nuclear power
Pakistan, which became a nuclear power in 1998 following its first nuclear weapons tests—more than 20 years after India’s first test blast—has long maintained a robust missile development programme.According to estimates by The Bulletin of the American Scientists research organization, Pakistan has a stockpile of about 170 warheads, the Reuters report stated.
Officials maintain that India’s most favoured nation (MFN)-weighted average import tariff is quite low at about 5-6%. Select agricultural products faced higher tariffs, but even those are much lower than the rates bound at the World Trade Organization (WTO).
Experts said New Delhi also has the option of imposing retaliatory tariffs or approaching the WTO even as they suggested a strategic approach.
A senior general in the Russian armed forces, who was in charge of nuclear protection forces, was killed in an explosion after a bomb hidden in an electric scooter went off on Tuesday, Russia’s investigative committee said.
Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, who is chief of Russia’s Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Protection Troops, was leaving an apartment building on Tuesday when the bomb hidden in the scooter detonated, killing him and reportedly his assistant as well.
“Igor Kirillov, the head of the radiation, chemical and biological protection forces of the armed forces of the Russian Federation, and his assistant were killed,” Russian authorities investigating the case said, reported Reuters.Photos on Russia’s Telegram channels displayed a building with rubble littered and the entrance of the apartment shattered with two bodies lying in a pool of blood-stained snow.A police cordon was also visible in the footage posted by Reuters, as the Russian authorities opened a criminal probe into the case. Russia’s special troops ‘RKhBZ’, the radioactive, chemical and biological defence forces, operate under conditions of radioactive, chemical and biological contamination.
Igor Kirillov was appointed to head the force in April 2017, as per BBC. According to Russian state news agency TASS, Kirillov attended the Kostroma Higher Military Command School of Chemical Defence.
As National Security Advisor Ajit Doval reached Beijing for talks Wednesday between the Special Representatives of the two countries, China said Tuesday it is ready to work with India to “deliver on important common understandings reached between our two leaders” and “enhance mutual trust and mutual confidence”.
China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi will represent Beijing at the Special Representative-level talks.
Responding to a query on the talks, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian told the media: “China stands ready to work with India to deliver on important common understandings reached between our two leaders, enhance mutual trust and mutual confidence through dialogue and communication, honour our commitments and promote our bilateral relations to go back to the sound and steady growth.”The Chinese Foreign Ministry statements did not make any reference to the military standoff along the Line of Actual Control in eastern Ladakh, now in its fifth year, but focused on “important common understandings” and “honour commitments” — a reference to the border patrolling arrangement announced on October 21 and the subsequent meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the BRICS Summit in Kazan, Russia on October 23.
Doval and Wang will hold the 23rd round of talks between the Special Representatives. They are expected to discuss a range of issues to rebuild bilateral ties which dived south following Chinese incursions in eastern Ladakh in 2020.This SR-level meeting comes less than a fortnight after India and China held official-level talks in New Delhi, following troop disengagement at two friction points along the LAC in eastern Ladakh.
On Monday night, the Ministry of External Affairs said, “As agreed during the meeting of the two leaders in Kazan on October 23, the two SRs will discuss the management of peace and tranquility in the border areas and explore a fair, reasonable and mutually acceptable solution to the boundary question.”.
After the Modi-Xi meeting in Kazan, their first after five years, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and Wang Yi met on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in November, followed by a meeting of the Working Mechanism for Consultation & Coordination on China-India Border Affairs (WMCC).
The WMCC meeting in New Delhi on December 5 “reflected on the lessons” learnt from the border standoff and emphasised the need for “effective border management” and “maintenance of peace and tranquillity”.
The two sides agreed to revive several dialogue mechanisms, including the dialogue between Special Representatives on the boundary question. The last round of the SR-level talks took place in New Delhi in December 2019.
