Syrian Security Forces Search for Militants Who Refuse to Turn in Their Weapons

Weapons and ammunition handed over by members of Bashar Assad regime security forces are collected by members of the new government, in Damascus, Syria, Tuesday, Dec. 31, 2024. (AP Photo/Mosa'ab Elshamy)
Weapons and ammunition handed over by members of Bashar Assad regime security forces are collected by members of the new government, in Damascus, Syria, Tuesday, Dec. 31, 2024. (AP Photo/Mosa'ab Elshamy)
TT

Syrian Security Forces Search for Militants Who Refuse to Turn in Their Weapons

Weapons and ammunition handed over by members of Bashar Assad regime security forces are collected by members of the new government, in Damascus, Syria, Tuesday, Dec. 31, 2024. (AP Photo/Mosa'ab Elshamy)
Weapons and ammunition handed over by members of Bashar Assad regime security forces are collected by members of the new government, in Damascus, Syria, Tuesday, Dec. 31, 2024. (AP Photo/Mosa'ab Elshamy)

The forces together with armed vehicles were deployed in the city of Homs Thursday to look for the militants affiliated with ousted President Bashar Assad, state media reported.
SANA, citing a military official, said that the new de facto authorities led by the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham group had set up centers in Syria’s third-largest city for former soldiers and militants to hand over their weapons, similar to other parts of Syria.
In early December, a lightning insurgency took out the decades-long rule of Assad in less than two weeks. HTS has since run much of war-torn Syria under the authority of its leader Ahmad al-Sharaa, The Associated Press said.
Officials who were part of Assad's notorious web of intelligence and security apparatus have been arrested over the past few weeks.



Trump’s Middle East Envoy Says Progress Being Made on Israeli Hostages in Gaza

Smoke billows as buildings lie in ruin in the Gaza Strip, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, as seen from southern Israel, January 7, 2025. (Reuters)
Smoke billows as buildings lie in ruin in the Gaza Strip, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, as seen from southern Israel, January 7, 2025. (Reuters)
TT

Trump’s Middle East Envoy Says Progress Being Made on Israeli Hostages in Gaza

Smoke billows as buildings lie in ruin in the Gaza Strip, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, as seen from southern Israel, January 7, 2025. (Reuters)
Smoke billows as buildings lie in ruin in the Gaza Strip, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, as seen from southern Israel, January 7, 2025. (Reuters)

President-elect Donald Trump's Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff said on Tuesday he hopes to have good things to report about Israeli hostages held by Hamas in Gaza by the time Trump is sworn in as president on Jan. 20.

Witkoff, at a press conference held by Trump in Palm Beach, Florida, said: "I'm really hopeful that by the inaugural we'll have some good things to announce on behalf of the President."

Republican Trump said of the Israeli hostages kidnapped by Hamas in the Oct. 7 2024 attack on Israel: "If the hostages are not back by the time I'm in office, all hell will break out in the Middle East, and it will not be good for Hamas, and it will not be good, frankly, for anyone."