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Bashar al-Assad, still in Syria but increasingly surrounded by the insurgent offensive

Syrian President, Bashar al Asad, is increasingly surrounded after the insurgent coalition led by Islamists and with the support of Turkey that launched an offensive against his government last week has advanced this Saturday from different fronts towards Damascus.

The Syrian Presidency confirmed today that Al Asad “continues with his work, and his national and constitutional tasks from the capital, Damascus,” and denied that he had made any lightning trip or left the country, in response to the persistent rumors that he had fled the city after almost five days without news of the president.

Meanwhile, Abu Mohamed al Jolani, Islamist leader of the Levant Liberation Agency – heir to the former Syrian affiliate of Al Qaeda and who leads the offensive – sent a message this Saturday to Syrian citizens and told them that Damascus awaits them as the final destination of the contest.

“I ask you not to waste a single bullet except in the chest of your enemies, because Damascus is waiting for you,” he said.

From northern Syria to Damascus

Lieutenant Colonel Hasan Abdelghani, who acts as military spokesman for the insurgent alliance, said in a statement that his units have entered the city of Al Mashrafah, in addition to 13 villages and towns on the outskirts of the city of Homs.

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He also indicated that the defensive lines of the Syrian Army are “collapsing,” both in the city and on the periphery.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an NGO headquartered in the United Kingdom but which has a wide network of collaborators on the ground both in official areas and taken by the rebels, indicated that the advance of Islamist factions towards the city of Homs has stalled due to the counterattacks of the Syrian Army and its ally Russia.

The Syrian Army reported that its units operating on the outskirts of Hama (city occupied this week) and Homs are carrying out “intense artillery and missile fire against positions and supply lines of the terrorists, achieving direct impacts between them,” according to the official Syrian news agency, SANA.

“The Syrian-Russian joint war aviation also carried out attacks against terrorist concentrations in northeastern Homs, eliminating dozens of them, and destroying their vehicles and equipment,” he added.

The conquest of Homs would leave Damascus without a land connection with the Mediterranean cities of Tartús, a fief of the Al Asad family, and Latakia, the main base of the Russian troops that support the president.

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Three key capitals in southern Syria

While the great offensive is being fought in northern Damascus, the greatest advances of the day came from the south, after the Military Operations Command of the rebels announced that they had control of three capitals in southern Syria.

The capitals are: Deraa, cradle of the popular revolts that began in 2011 within the framework of the so-called “Arab Spring”; Al Sueida, whose population is Drusa and has demonstrated in recent years against the Syrian Government for the living conditions in the country; and, Quneitra, which borders the Golan Heights occupied by Israel.

These cities have been taken by local factions opposed to the government, within the framework of a broad insurgent coalition that, in addition to the Levant Liberation Agency (HTS in Arabic), the groups supported by Turkey, and, in the case of Al Sueida, the Druse population, participate.

The Syrian Army confirmed today that it was retaching its units from Deraa and Al Sueida to reposition themselves in other areas due to the “terrorist attacks” against its troops.

About 50 kilometers south of the Syrian capital

In the north of the province of Deraa, the insurgents indicated that they took control of the city of Al Sanamayn.

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That means they would be about 50 kilometers south of the Syrian capital.

In the province of Rif Damascus, which borders Damascus, protests against the Government took place in the city of Jaramana, where they knocked down a statue of Hafez al Asad, former president and father of the current leader, reported the Observatory, which published a video of the moment, a recording that could not be verified independently.

The city of Jaramana is already located on the outskirts of Damascus and is an area inhabited by the Druse population, the NGO said.

However, a Syrian Army source denounced that “some sleeping cells linked to terrorist organizations are publishing videos on their media channels from squares and streets in areas of Rif Damascus and other provinces, stating that terrorist elements have taken control of them, all with the aim of sowing chaos among citizens and terrorizing them,” the official Syrian agency reported.

The two main allies of the Syrian government, Iran and Russia, and the greatest support of the armed opposition to President Bashar al-Assad, Turkey, brought positions closer on Saturday to call for a cessation of hostilities in the midst of the offensive of the Islamist rebels and to start a dialogue that ends the war in Syria.

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The Doha Forum was the scene of the first contact between the foreign ministers of these three powers that guarantee the ceasefire in Syria and that are part of the so-called Astana Format, a mechanism established in 2017 to find a solution to the war in the Arab country.

Official silence in the US over a possible fall of Al Asad in Syria

Joe Biden’s government considers that there is a growing possibility that the Executive of Syrian President Bashar al Asad will collapse “in days” due to the rapid advance of the insurgent coalition led by Islamists and backed by Turkey, according to five US officials revealed to CNN.

For its part, the CBS network, which cites three US officials, reported this Saturday that “Damaskus is destined to fall,” although, unlike CNN, its sources did not offer a specific deadline.

According to officials quoted by CBS, the Iranian forces defending the Syrian president have evacuated “practically in its entirety” from the country.

Despite these media leaks, the US government has not yet made public a formal assessment of the future of Al Asad, who until just a week ago seemed to be in a stable position after having managed to crush the opposition in fourteen years of civil war.

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International

Indigenous candidate Leonidas Iza predicts a new social explosion if there is no change in Ecuador

The presidential candidate of Ecuador for the indigenous movement, Leonidas Iza, who was part of the wave of protests of 2019 and who led that of 2022, reveals himself as an “anti-system” politician in the face of “a corrupt system” that he intends to reformulate to relieve the impoverished, because he predicts a new social explosion if there is no change in the Government to meet popular demands.

Iza, 42, is the candidate of Pachakutik, the political arm of the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (Conaie) that he himself presides over, and with which he was at the forefront of the 2022 wave of protests against the government of conservative President Guillermo Lasso, where he was arrested and even labeled a “terrorist.”

“I am one of those who has never lost the ability to be outraged when governments have had policies against their own citizens,” Iza, a native of the Andean province of Cotopaxi, said in an interview with EFE.

“I am not against the private sector, I am against those who do not pay taxes and those who come to the Government only to defend their companies,” said the candidate in reference to the last two presidents (Lasso and Daniel Noboa).

“We fight for social justice, not to be violent. It is a reaction to the injustice to which we have been subjected,” he said.

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For Iza, who represents the anti-extractivist left of Ecuador, the country has “a corrupt system, a health system that does not work, a deficient and unfair economic system, and public services that are not helping citizens.”

“And that’s what we want to change. We won’t be able to do it overnight, but the State can give relief to the people,” the candidate said.

To do this, it proposes to fight against tax evasion, which amounts to about 7.5 billion dollars a year, and also against corruption, which is estimated at about 3 billion dollars per year, to balance public accounts without having to follow the current credit program with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that asks to cut public spending and raise taxes.

He also aimed to increase agricultural productivity, as well as boost tourism to go from 1 to 3 million visitors a year, and anticipated that he will regulate small and artisanal mining to avoid illegal mining but will not allow large-scale mining because it considers that it can contaminate the country’s large river basins.

Iza anticipated that he will not pay the external debt as long as there are “guaguas (children, in Kichwa) who have no education and are dying of hunger, and colleagues who are dying for lack of health.”

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“We will tell the IMF and the other multilaterals that we are going to pay, but first we are going to solve the structural problem we have at the moment: education, health and minimum conditions for security,” he warned.

In that sense, Iza pointed out that “the strength of a popular reaction in the streets is accumulating” that must be resolved by whoever is elected. “Knowing my country, which has been on the streets all its life, there will be a popular reaction if (the discomfort) is not resolved in the following months,” he reiterated.

“The option that understands the people is us, and not the sectors that have always been in the Government,” said Iza, who avoided pointing out whether that reaction will reach the dimensions of the strong protests of 2019 and 2022, both led by the indigenous movement.

In this electoral campaign, Iza has left his distinctive Andean red poncho to put on the bulletproof vest in the face of the persistent wave of violence of organized crime that the country is experiencing, because he warned that the “war” that Noboa declared to the criminal gangs has not worked because its leaders are still free.

Faced with this, he promised “a hard hand for all” and recalled that “state institutions must suffocate everyone (criminals)”.

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The candidate also advocated deepening international cooperation: “there must be a responsibility of all countries (producers, consumers and drug transit), especially in the region (of Latin America)”.

Asked if Ecuadorian society is ready to have an indigenous president of rural origin, Iza sees himself with popular support to face “the most reactionary sectors that have support in racism and stigmatization.”

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International

Deaths in a hotel fire in a ski resort in Turkey rise to 69

The fire that occurred this morning in a 12-story hotel in a ski resort in northwestern Turkey claimed at least 69 deaths, in addition to causing fifty injuries, according to the latest assessment of the country’s authorities.

The fire originated around 3.30 a.m. local time (0.30 GMT) in a hotel, built entirely of wood, in the Kartalkaya ski center, halfway between Istanbul and Ankara, with almost full occupancy.

The flames were extinguished after about ten hours of firefighters’ work and the authorities found the death of 66 people, in addition to rescuing 51 injured, compared to the 10 dead and 32 injured initially estimated.

The hotel, with 161 rooms, had an occupancy close to 90%, because these days are the winter school holidays in Turkey, says the Turkish newspaper Hürriyet.

The wooden construction and the location of the hotel at the foot of a ski slope, which only allows vehicle access from the front facade, made the intervention of firefighters difficult, the Turkish newspaper explained.

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According to the television network NTV, about 300 people, including employees, were in the hotel at the time of the fire, the causes of which are still unknown.

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International

Hamas calls for counterattack on Israeli soldiers during their incursion in the West Bank

The Islamist organization Hamas urged the Palestinians on Tuesday to intensify and support their militiamen in the clashes against the Israeli Army during the military incursion that began today in Yenin, in the north of the occupied West Bank.

“We call on the masses of our people in the West Bank and their revolutionary youth to mobilize and intensify the clashes against the (Israeli) occupation army at all points, and to work to thwart the extensive Zionist aggression against the city of Yenin.”

“This military operation launched by the occupation in Yenin will fail, as did all its previous military operations against our brave people and their tenacious resistance,” the Palestinian group said.

Since the beginning of the operation, nicknamed by the Army “Iron Wall”, at least seven Palestinians have died in Yenin and another 35 have been injured, according to data from the Palestinian Ministry of Health.

Hamas accused the forces of the Palestinian National Authority (ANP), President Mahmoud Abbas’ ruling party in the West Bank, of having left Yenin to allow the operation of Israeli troops, instead of defending the Palestinians.

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu defended on Tuesday that the last assault launched by his forces against Yenin, in the north of the occupied West Bank, seeks to “eradicate terrorism.”

“This is another step towards the objective we have set ourselves: to strengthen security in Judea and Samaria (West Bank),” according to a statement released by its Office.

“We are acting systematically and decisively against the Iranian axis wherever it sends its weapons: in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, Judea and Samaria (West Bank),” concludes the Israeli president’s note.

The rail comes shortly after the start of the ceasefire in Gaza, which includes a weekly exchange of hostages in the Strip for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons.

Following the release of the prisoners, the Army increased its presence in this occupied territory with seven companies, claiming to strengthen its “anti-terrorist efforts.”

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The images recorded in Yenin show dozens of Army vehicles accessing the local refugee camp, which has also been bombed by Israeli aviation.

The incursions and attacks of Israeli forces in Yenin, considered a bastion of Islamist-like militias, were already constant but they worsened after the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023.

However, since mid-December it has been the security forces of the Palestinian National Authority (ANP), which governs small parts of the West Bank, that have led an offensive in this population, which until last Friday triggered armed fighting against the militiamen.

This exchange of fire has caused at least 15 people dead on both sides, including two minors.

The occupied West Bank is experiencing its greatest spiral of violence since the Second Intifada (2000-05), and in 2024 at least 491 Palestinians have died in the territory by Israeli fire, most of them militiamen from refugee camps, but also civilians, including at least 75 minors, according to EFE’s count.

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So far this year, at least 24 Palestinians have already died in Israeli attacks, five of them minors.

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