Opposition fighters are closing in on Syria’s capital in a swiftly developing crisis that has taken much of the world by surprise. Syria's army has abandoned key cities in the west and south with little resistance. Nervous residents in Damascus describe security forces on the streets. The state news agency has been forced to deny rumors that President Bashar Assad has left the country. Who are these opposition fighters ? If they enter Damascus after taking two of Syria’s largest cities , what then? Here’s a look at the stunning reversal of fortune for Assad and his government in just the past 10 days, and what might lie ahead as Syria’s 13-year civil war reignites . This is the first time that opposition forces have reached the outskirts of the Syrian capital since 2018, when the country’s troops recaptured the area following a yearslong siege. The approaching fighters are led by the most powerful insurgent group in Syria, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham , or HTS, along with an umbrella group of Turkish-backed Syrian militias called the Syrian National Army. Both have been entrenched in the northwest. They launched the shock offensive on Nov. 27 with gunmen capturing Aleppo, Syria’s largest city, and the central city of Hama, the fourth largest. The HTS has its origins in al-Qaida and is considered a terrorist organization by the U.S. and the United Nations. But the group said in recent years it cut ties with al-Qaida, and experts say HTS has sought to remake itself in recent years by focusing on promoting civilian government in their territory as well as military action. HTS leader Abu Mohammed al-Golani told CNN in an exclusive interview Thursday from Syria that the aim of the offensive is to overthrow Assad’s government. The HTS and Syrian National Army have been allies at times and rivals at times, and their aims might diverge. The Turkish-backed militias also have an interest in creating a buffer zone near the Turkish border to keep away Kurdish militants at odds with Ankara. Turkey has been a main backer of the fighters seeking to overthrow Assad but more recently has urged reconciliation, and Turkish officials have strongly rejected claims of any involvement in the current offensive. Whether the HTS and the Syrian National Army will work together if they succeed in overthrowing Assad or turn on each other again is a major question. While the flash offensive against Syria’s government began in the north, armed opposition groups have also mobilized elsewhere. The southern areas of Sweida and Daraa have both been taken locally. Sweida is the heartland of Syria’s Druze religious minority and had been the site of regular anti-government protests even after Assad seemingly consolidated his control over the area. Daraa is a Sunni Muslim area that was widely seen as the cradle of the uprising against Assad’s rule that erupted in 2011. Daraa was recaptured by Syrian government troops in 2018, but rebels remained in some areas. In recent years, Daraa was in a state of uneasy quiet under a Russian-mediated ceasefire deal. And much of Syria's east is controlled by the Syrian Democratic Forces, a Kurdish-led group backed by the United States that in the past has clashed with most other armed groups in the country. Syria’s government now controls just four of 14 provincial capitals. Much depends on Assad’s next moves and his forces' will to fight. A commander with the insurgents, Hassan Abdul-Ghani, posted on the Telegram messaging app that opposition forces have started carrying out the “final stage” of their offensive by encircling Damascus. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Syrian troops have withdrawn from much of the two southern provinces and are sending reinforcements to Homs. If that city is captured, the link would be cut between Damascus, Assad’s seat of power, and the coastal region where he enjoys wide support. “Homs to the coastal cities will be a very huge red line politically and socially. Politically, if this line is crossed, then we are talking about the end of the entire Syria, the one that we knew in the past,” said a Damascus resident, Anas Joudeh. Assad appears to be largely on his own as allies Russia and Iran are distracted by other conflicts and the Lebanon-based Hezbollah has been weakened by its war with Israel, now under a fragile ceasefire. The U.N. special envoy for Syria, Geir Pedersen, is calling for urgent talks in Geneva to ensure an “orderly political transition,” saying the situation is changing by the minute. He met with foreign ministers and senior diplomats from eight key countries including Saudi Arabia, Russia, Egypt, Turkey and Iran on the sidelines of the Doha Summit. President-elect Donald Trump in his first extensive comments on the developments in Syria said the besieged Assad didn’t deserve U.S. support to stay in power. “THIS IS NOT OUR FIGHT,” Trump posted on social media.( MENAFN - The Conversation) In December 1978, Jimmy Carter – who has died aged 100 – outlined his belief that American strategic decisions abroad should be shaped by an adherence to human rights.“Human rights is the soul of our foreign policy ... because human rights is the soul of our sense of nationhood.” In the sphere of foreign affairs, Jimmy Carter's one term as US president (1977-1981) had some notable achievements. The most significant was the 1978 Camp David accords . Carter, Israeli prime Minister Menachem Begin, and Egyptian president Anwar Sadat signed an agreement that saw Begin agree to relinquish the entire Sinai Peninsula, captured by Israel in the 1967 six-day war, in exchange for peace and full diplomatic relations with Egypt. This exemplified Carter's belief in the power of American diplomacy and why US presidents should courageously assume the difficult task of peace-making . Twenty-five years later, and against the backdrop of the build-up to the second Gulf war, Carter was recognised for his role in the accords and awarded the 2002 Nobel peace prize. The Nobel committee said that while President George W. Bush was planning an invasion of Iraq:“former President Jimmy Carter was awarded the Peace Prize for undertaking peace negotiations, campaigning for human rights, and working for social welfare”. They added that the prize was in recognition of“his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development”. On leaving office in January 1981, Carter sought to use his status as a former president to engage in the issues and causes that mattered to him most. He established the Carter Center to pursue his own course of personal diplomacy. Starting in 1982, the centre has monitored more than 110 elections in 39 countries. Ahead of the 2020 US presidential election and as then president Donald Trump on refused to commit to a peaceful transition should he lose, the Carter Center took the extraordinary step of designating the US as a “backsliding” democracy . Carter, a devout Christian, maximised his personal relationships with former world leaders to promote democracy and human rights, support scientific work on eliminating diseases, and to mediate where possible to prevent conflict. His activism was not always appreciated by some of his White House successors, both Republican and Democrat. Randall Balmer , professor of religion at Dartmouth College, said that the former president's personal brand of diplomacy could often complicate and even contradict contemporary US diplomatic initiatives. Carter was a member of The Elders , an independent group of global leaders working on peace promotion, social justice, climate change and global human rights. During his years of active membership Carter dedicated significant energy to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict , visiting the region on a number of occasions to support the Elders' work. In the early 1990s the former president became involved in mediation work between the US State Department and several rogue states including North Korea and Libya. In 1994, Carter supported the US government's diplomatic efforts to resolve an increasingly tense nuclear weapons' situation with North Korean leader Kim Il Sung. Carter met with Kim in June 1994, becoming the first former US president to visit the country. The trip laid the groundwork for an eventual bilateral deal between North Korea and the US. The agreement saw North Korea pledge to freeze its plutonium weapons programme, while the US agreed to offer aid. Carter continued to weigh-in on contemporary geopolitical events well into his 90s. He was openly critical when Trump announced in May 2018 that he was withdrawing the US from the Iran nuclear agreement , which had been negotiated by the Obama administration in 2015. He called Trump's move a “serious mistake” . Carter felt that an international agreement made by an American president needed to be binding on all their successors and that by walking away from the Iran deal the US was signalling a“message to North Korea that if the United States signs an agreement, it may or may not be honored”. One of Carter's major accomplishments since leaving office was his centre's work in health care, and specifically the eradication of Guinea-worm disease. This is a parasitic infection caused by drinking contaminated water. The consequences of the illness , while not fatal, can incapacitate the sufferer and lead to permanent disability. The Carter Center committed to training over 100,000 village-based health care workers, invested in education programmes and provided water filters to protect people from swallowing the parasite. The results have been highly successful. According to the centre:“incidences of Guinea-worm disease have been reduced from an estimated 3.5 million in 1986 to 13 in 2023 , with the disease being eliminated in 17 countries”. Jimmy Carter's commitment to human rights never went away and his concept of a human-rights focused foreign policy has become permanently encoded in the global conversation . The former president's work brought him international acclaim, and illustrated why the nation's leaders should reject short-sighted calculations that risk the US being complicit in human rights violations . MENAFN29122024000199003603ID1109040022 Legal Disclaimer: MENAFN provides the information “as is” without warranty of any kind. We do not accept any responsibility or liability for the accuracy, content, images, videos, licenses, completeness, legality, or reliability of the information contained in this article. If you have any complaints or copyright issues related to this article, kindly contact the provider above.
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Oregon already secured its spot in the Big Ten championship game, but the top-ranked Ducks have plenty to play for in their regular-season finale. Revenge may be on Oregon's mind when the Ducks host longtime rival Washington on Saturday in Eugene, Ore. Oregon (11-0, 8-0 Big Ten) would perhaps be closing in on its second straight College Football Playoff appearance had the Huskies (6-5, 4-4) not dealt the Ducks their only two losses last season. Washington edged Oregon 36-33 in Seattle last October, then slipped past the Ducks 34-31 in the Pac-12 title game to secure a playoff spot for the second time in school history. Both teams joined the Big Ten in August. Third-year Oregon head coach Dan Lanning is 33-5 leading the Ducks. But he remains winless against the Huskies (0-3). Oregon plots to sprint out of its late-season bye after using time to heal injuries, but Lanning doesn't believe the break should stall the flow of an undefeated season. "It's always about what we're able to do on the field. Motivation is overrated," Lanning said. "Our guys have to want to go out there and execute at a really high level. Since the beginning of the season we've talked about playing our best football at the end of November. We're there. This is our opportunity to go play our best football against a good team." The Ducks could have star wide receiver Tez Johnson back from a shoulder injury this week. Johnson has missed the past two games. That would be good news for quarterback Dillon Gabriel, who would regain the team's leader in receptions (64), receiving yards (649) and receiving touchdowns (eight). Washington, under first-year head coach Jedd Fisch, is 63-48-5 all-time against Oregon but is just 1-12-1 when facing the No. 1-ranked team in the country. The Huskies are led on offense by running back Jonah Coleman, who has racked up 1,008 yards and nine scores on the ground this season. Coleman averages 5.8 yards per carry and has 36 runs of at least 10 yards. In the passing game, wide receiver Denzel Boston is tied for the Big Ten lead with nine in touchdown catches and ranks sixth in the conference with 764 receiving yards. Whom Boston will be catching passes from is not yet known, however. Washington has not revealed whether Will Rogers or Demond Williams Jr. will start at quarterback. Rogers has started every game for the Huskies but was benched in favor of Williams two weeks ago after throwing a pair of interceptions in a 31-19 win over UCLA. Fisch said he has a "good idea" of how he will use his quarterbacks on Saturday, and while he wouldn't go as far as to name a starter, he did say Rogers responded well in practices last week. "On the same token, Demond's energy and Demond's confidence showed up. His ability to jump right in and feel really good about leading the group whenever it was his turn... he did a really nice job there as well," Fisch told Seattle Sports. "I think both guys responded well to the week of practice, and now, really, it's important for us that the guy we believe will start the game gets a significant amount of reps in practice week. But as you know, we're not afraid to play two quarterbacks." --Field Level Media
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