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Sudan’s Burhan Announces Plans for a Technocratic Government

Chairman of Sudan’s Sovereign Council Abdel Fattah al-Burhan during his meeting with Heiko Nitschke, Germany’s Special Envoy to the Horn of Africa (Sudanese Transitional Sovereign Council)
Chairman of Sudan’s Sovereign Council Abdel Fattah al-Burhan during his meeting with Heiko Nitschke, Germany’s Special Envoy to the Horn of Africa (Sudanese Transitional Sovereign Council)
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Sudan’s Burhan Announces Plans for a Technocratic Government

Chairman of Sudan’s Sovereign Council Abdel Fattah al-Burhan during his meeting with Heiko Nitschke, Germany’s Special Envoy to the Horn of Africa (Sudanese Transitional Sovereign Council)
Chairman of Sudan’s Sovereign Council Abdel Fattah al-Burhan during his meeting with Heiko Nitschke, Germany’s Special Envoy to the Horn of Africa (Sudanese Transitional Sovereign Council)

Sudan’s Sovereign Council Chairman and Army Chief, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, reaffirmed on Thursday that the military is committed to creating the necessary conditions for a democratically elected civilian government to take power.

During a meeting with Germany’s Special Envoy to the Horn of Africa, Heiko Nitschke, Burhan emphasized that the armed forces have no intention of engaging in political affairs.

A statement from the Sovereign Council said both sides discussed efforts to initiate an inclusive national dialogue and form a technocratic government to oversee preparations for elections, in line with the recently announced roadmap.

For his part, the German envoy expressed Berlin’s readiness to support Sudan’s reconstruction efforts and collaborate with international partners on post-war rebuilding, according to the statement.

Over the past month, the Sudanese army has reclaimed key areas in the capital, Khartoum, including the presidential palace, all ministerial headquarters, the Central Bank of Sudan, and other major government institutions. Meanwhile, columns of Rapid Support Forces (RSF) fighters were seen withdrawing from the capital, crossing Jebel Aulia Bridge toward White Nile State.

Residents reported that the army launched airstrikes in Omdurman on Thursday, following its declared victory over the RSF in a two-year battle for control of Khartoum.

The war has devastated large parts of Khartoum, displaced over 12 million Sudanese, and pushed nearly half of the country’s 50 million people into severe hunger, in what the United Nations has described as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

The Sudanese army now controls most of Omdurman, home to two major military bases, and appears focused on eliminating the remaining RSF units to secure full control over Greater Khartoum. Thursday’s artillery strikes targeted southern Omdurman.

The Sudanese army and RSF were once allies, having jointly orchestrated the 2021 coup that derailed Sudan’s democratic transition following the overthrow of longtime ruler Omar al-Bashir in April 2019. However, their alliance quickly unraveled, plunging the country into a devastating civil war driven by a bitter power struggle.

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Arab World

Israeli NGO Slams Investment Plan for West Bank Settlements

Construction cranes tower above a construction site in Givat HaMatos, an Israeli settlement suburb of Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem on January 2, 2026. (AFP)
Construction cranes tower above a construction site in Givat HaMatos, an Israeli settlement suburb of Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem on January 2, 2026. (AFP)
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Israeli NGO Slams Investment Plan for West Bank Settlements

Construction cranes tower above a construction site in Givat HaMatos, an Israeli settlement suburb of Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem on January 2, 2026. (AFP)
Construction cranes tower above a construction site in Givat HaMatos, an Israeli settlement suburb of Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem on January 2, 2026. (AFP)

An Israeli NGO on Wednesday condemned a government plan to invest around $2.7 billion in infrastructure and thousands of new residential units across several settlements in the occupied West Bank.

Since Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took office in 2022, his government has rapidly expanded settlements in the West Bank, drawing criticism from rights groups and the UN.

Earlier this week, Netanyahu and far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich signed an umbrella agreement to invest in settlements in the north of the Palestinian territory.

"This is another significant step in the settlement revolution we are leading in Judea and Samaria," Smotrich said on X, using the biblical name for the West Bank.

"As part of the agreement, approximately 12,000 new housing units will be established, alongside an investment of more than eight billion ILS (approximately $ 2.7 billion) in infrastructure, public institutions and settlement development."

Netanyahu hailed the agreement.

"Not only do we defend this place, we elevate it," he said.

Israeli anti-settlement watchdog Peace Now slammed the decision, accusing the government of squandering public funds and entrenching the occupation of the West Bank.

The group said the move would complicate any future withdrawal from the West Bank and the creation of a Palestinian state.

"Umbrella agreements are used for the rapid development of large-scale projects," Hagit Ofran, a spokeswoman for Peace Now, told AFP.

"From the government's perspective, it is a double win: unbridled construction in the settlements, along with shackling the next government to commitments that will make it difficult to roll back this terrible government's reckless policy."

Since taking office, Netanyahu's government, widely seen as one of the most right-wing in the country's history, has approved the establishment of 102 settlements in the West Bank, according to Peace Now.

All Israeli settlements are illegal under international law.

Excluding east Jerusalem, more than 500,000 Israelis live in settlements in the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967, among some three million Palestinians.

Arab World

Syria Says Arrested Assad-Era Officer Specializing in Chemical Weapons

People sit across from a poster depicting Syria's President Bashar al-Assad in a gas mask during an event in the opposition-held northern city of Afrin, on August 20, 2023, marking the 10-year anniversary of chemical attacks that killed over 1,400 people in Ghouta, near the capital. (AFP)
People sit across from a poster depicting Syria's President Bashar al-Assad in a gas mask during an event in the opposition-held northern city of Afrin, on August 20, 2023, marking the 10-year anniversary of chemical attacks that killed over 1,400 people in Ghouta, near the capital. (AFP)
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Syria Says Arrested Assad-Era Officer Specializing in Chemical Weapons

People sit across from a poster depicting Syria's President Bashar al-Assad in a gas mask during an event in the opposition-held northern city of Afrin, on August 20, 2023, marking the 10-year anniversary of chemical attacks that killed over 1,400 people in Ghouta, near the capital. (AFP)
People sit across from a poster depicting Syria's President Bashar al-Assad in a gas mask during an event in the opposition-held northern city of Afrin, on August 20, 2023, marking the 10-year anniversary of chemical attacks that killed over 1,400 people in Ghouta, near the capital. (AFP)

Syrian authorities announced on Wednesday the arrest of a former officer they say was a chemical weapons specialist in charge of sarin gas depots and chemical weapons manufacturing during ousted President Bashar al-Assad's era.

Since Assad's fall in December 2024, authorities have arrested dozens of people they say committed crimes during the country's 13-year civil war, and started trials in April.

The interior ministry said security forces had arrested Colonel Ahmed Habib Ali, calling him "a chemical weapons expert".

Colonel Ahmed Habib Ali after his arrest. (Syrian Interior Ministry)

It also said he "was responsible for sarin gas storage facilities and chemical manufacturing within Unit 417", a key chemical weapons storage facility near the capital, Damascus.

According to the ministry, Ali was "one of the officers who supervised the manufacture of about 20 bombs loaded with sarin gas, each weighing 250 kilograms, which were used in attacks targeting Syrian cities and towns in 2013 and 2017".

In the first and deadliest instance in August 2013, the army was accused of using chemical weapons to target areas then under opposition control, killing more than 1,400 men, women and children, according to US intelligence and rights groups.

An aerial view shows a mass grave where are buried those who were killed by the sarin struck during a 2013 chemical weapons attack that was blamed on then President Bashar al-Assad's forces, in Zamalka neighborhood, on the outskirts of Damascus, Syria, Wednesday, Dec. 25, 2024. (AP)

With Syria at the height of its civil war, the Assad government agreed to hand over its chemical arsenal in order to avert US strikes.

Between 2014 and 2017, Damascus was accused of launching four further attacks on towns controlled by opposition factions, using sarin and chlorine gas.

Ali's arrest comes after Syria was reinstated into the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) last week.

The OPCW had stripped Syria of its voting rights in 2021 after finding its air force had used sarin and chlorine gas on its own people.

In April, Syria's judiciary began a series of public trials for former officials on various charges, some of which amount to war crimes committed after the outbreak of popular protests in 2011, which were violently suppressed by the authorities.

Arab World

Lebanon, Israel Conclude US-Brokered Talks on ‘Pilot Zones’ in Rome

This photograph shows the US embassy in Rome on July 14, 2026, on the first day of talks between the Lebanese and Israeli delegations on the backdrop of a regional escalation between Washington and Tehran. (AFP)
This photograph shows the US embassy in Rome on July 14, 2026, on the first day of talks between the Lebanese and Israeli delegations on the backdrop of a regional escalation between Washington and Tehran. (AFP)
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Lebanon, Israel Conclude US-Brokered Talks on ‘Pilot Zones’ in Rome

This photograph shows the US embassy in Rome on July 14, 2026, on the first day of talks between the Lebanese and Israeli delegations on the backdrop of a regional escalation between Washington and Tehran. (AFP)
This photograph shows the US embassy in Rome on July 14, 2026, on the first day of talks between the Lebanese and Israeli delegations on the backdrop of a regional escalation between Washington and Tehran. (AFP)

Lebanon and Israel ‌concluded US-brokered talks in Rome on Wednesday, with a US official saying they had made progress on implementing a plan that could see Israeli forces begin to withdraw from some parts of southern Lebanon within days.

The two longtime foes held ambassador-level talks at the US embassy in Rome on Tuesday and Wednesday — their sixth round of face-to-face negotiations since a new war erupted on March 2 between Israel and Lebanese armed group Hezbollah, triggered by the ‌wider regional conflict.

Under ‌a US-brokered June 26 framework deal, ‌Lebanon ⁠and Israel agreed to ⁠implement a "pilot zone" project that would see the disarmament of armed groups — an apparent reference to Hezbollah — as well as the deployment of Lebanese troops to the south and the progressive withdrawal of Israeli forces still occupying Lebanese land.

In written comments distributed to journalists, a US official ⁠described the two days of talks ‌as "productive and positive".

"We agreed on the ‌structure and guidelines for the pilot zone process, to be ‌finalized and implemented in the coming days," the official ‌said.

The official said talks would move to a technical phase to implement the framework deal and reach a "comprehensive agreement between Israel and Lebanon."

There was no immediate comment from either Lebanon ‌or Israel on progress made in the talks.

Israel's military is occupying what it describes ⁠as a "buffer ⁠zone" about 10 km (6 miles) into Lebanon along the entire length of the Israeli border. Israeli officials say the zone is necessary to protect northern Israeli communities from attacks launched by Hezbollah.

Lebanon has called for Israel to begin withdrawing immediately, but Israel has said its troops would remain in southern Lebanon as long as Hezbollah remained armed.

The direct talks have continued despite intermittent deadly Israeli strikes and strong objections from Hezbollah, which rejects disarming and says only pressure from its ally Iran can secure an end to the war and Israel's withdrawal.