Middle Eastern Business Headlines at 4:50 a.m. GMT

Associated Press

Two attacks by Yemen's Houthi rebels strike ships in the Red Sea

Latest stories

  • Footage shows secret underground tunnels used by Assad regime in Syria

    President Bashar al-Assad fled to Moscow on Sunday with his family

  • Syria rebels burn tomb of Bashar al-Assad's father

    Armed men are seen celebrating in Hafez al-Assad's burning mausoleum in the family's hometown.

  • Israel’s warplanes pound Syria as it destroys Assad’s naval fleet

    After the fall of the Assad regime, the Israeli military has taken control of a UN-controlled buffer zone in the Golan Heights and hit targets across the country

  • Syrian rebel leader says he will dissolve toppled regime forces, close prisons

    Syrian rebel leader Ahmad al-Sharaa - better known as Abu Mohammed al-Golani - told Reuters in a written statement on Wednesday that he would dissolve the security forces of the toppled regime of Bashar al-Assad. His forces swept across Syria in a lightning offensive that overthrew 50 years of Assad family rule, replacing it with a three-month transitional government of ministers that had been ruling a rebel enclave in Syria's northwest. The military command affiliated with his group, which is known as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, already said they would grant an amnesty to military conscripts.

  • West should not fear us, Syria’s rebel leader insists

    The leader of the Syrian rebel coalition which toppled the Assad dynasty has sought to reassure Western nations they have nothing to fear from his victory.

  • Middle East crisis – live: Syria rebel leader vows revenge against Assad henchmen as Israel strikes ports

    France joins Arab nations in criticising Israel for exploiting the Syria crisis to capture more territory near the Golan Heights

  • Taliban minister and member of powerful Haqqani family killed in Kabul bombing

    At least three of Haqqani’s bodyguards were also killed and eight others wounded in the suicide bombing claimed by Isis, officials say

  • Syrian rebels name new PM as outside powers move to shore up interests

    Israel plans to create ‘sterile defensive zone’ inside southern border, and Turkey bombs Kurdish targets in north Syria

  • Syria in maps: Who controls the country now Assad has gone?

    A visual guide to the latest developments as advancing Syrian fighters set their sights on Damascus.

  • US general monitors first withdrawal of Israeli troops from Lebanon

    A top U.S. military officer visited Beirut on Wednesday to monitor the withdrawal of the first Israeli troops from Lebanon under a ceasefire agreement reached last month, the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) said. Army General Michael Kurilla, CENTCOM's commander, visited the monitoring headquarters in Beirut for the ceasefire and met with the commander of Lebanon's armed forces, General Joseph Aoun, CENTCOM said in a post on X.

  • US will support new Syrian government that renounces terrorism, protects rights: Blinken

    Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday outlined some of the Biden administration’s requirements for supporting a new government in Syria, after a rebel military alliance ousted longtime dictator Bashar al-Assad from power in recent days. Abu Mohammed al-Golani, who has been designated a terrorist by the U.S., has emerged as the leading figure in…

  • Israel targets Syrian military bases and arsenals before new leaders can take them over

    The Israeli military said it targeted Syrian antiaircraft batteries, missile depots, manufacturing facilities, drones, helicopters, fighter jets, tanks, hangars, radars and 15 naval vessels.

  • America's closest ally in Syria is losing ground as a new order takes shape

    The jihadi rebels who toppled Syrian President Bashar Assad say they want to build a unified, inclusive country. For Syria’s Kurdish minority, America’s closest ally in the country, the struggle for a new order is entering a potentially even more challenging phase. Over the course of Syria’s civil war, Kurdish fighters have fended off an array of armed factions, partnered with the U.S. to rout the Islamic State group and carved out a largely autonomous region in the country’s oil-rich east.

  • Taliban minister killed in Islamic State suicide attack

    The Taliban’s minister for refugees has been killed in a suicide bomb attack believed to have been carried out by the Islamic State.

  • Syrian rebel leader says he will dissolve regime forces, as Syrians return to work

    Syrian rebel leader Ahmad al-Sharaa — better known as Abu Mohammed Al-Golani — said in a written statement Wednesday that he would dissolve the security forces of the toppled regime of Bashar al-Assad, news which comes as Syrians are beginning to adjust to the end of the regime. The statement, shared exclusively with Reuters by his office, stated that he would also "close the notorious prisons," where an estimated tens of thousands of detainees were held by the Assad regime for years. Golani's f

  • Tight security for Taliban minister’s funeral as Islamic State group claim deadly suicide attack

    Tight security measures were in place Thursday for a Taliban minister’s funeral in Afghanistan after he was killed in a suicide bombing claimed by an affiliate of the Islamic State group. Cabinet member Khalil Haqqani was the most high-profile casualty of an assault in the country since the Taliban seized power three years ago. Haqqani is the uncle of Sirajuddin Haqqani, the acting interior minister and the leader of a powerful faction within the Taliban.

  • Victims of world’s only famine eat peanut shells to survive

    The coarse paste of crushed peanut shells called ombaz is normally considered waste, and only fit to feed cattle. But for many in Sudan’s Zamzam camp it is now all they have to stave off hunger pangs.

  • Vandals burn a car and spray graffiti in latest antisemitic attack in Australia

    Vandals torched a car and sprayed graffiti with anti-Israel slogans including an apparently misspelled “Kill Israiel" on Wednesday in a Sydney suburb that is home to Australia's largest Jewish community. Officials condemned the attack as antisemitic. The incident in the eastern suburb of Woollahra came after federal police this week established a task force to investigate increasing antisemitic crimes across the country.

  • Blinken lays out US hopes for Syria's political transition

    The United States on Tuesday laid out its hopes for Syria's political transition following Assad's ouster, saying it would recognize a future Syrian government that amounts to a credible, inclusive and non-sectarian governing body. It is the clearest definition outlined by Washington since Syria's opposition militias overthrew President Bashar al-Assad in a shockingly fast takeover after 13 years of civil war. The Biden administration, along with governments in the region and the West has been scrambling to find ways to engage with the Syrian rebel groups including leading rebel faction Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a group formerly allied with Al Qaeda and which is designated a terrorist organization by the U.S., European Union, Turkey and the U.N.

  • ‘They used us as a testing ground for all kinds of weapons’: Syrians return to destroyed town

    ON THE GROUND: Bel Trew visits Jobar – north of Damascus – which was devastated by some of the fiercest battles of the civil war. She meets residents returning home for the first time in more than a decade. Both they, and Syria itself, face major challenges in starting anew