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Syria Swears in New Transitional Government

29 March 2025, Syria, Damascus: Syria's President Ahmed al-Sharaa speaks during the ceremony announcing the new Syrian government at the People's Palace. Photo: Moawia Atrash/dpa
29 March 2025, Syria, Damascus: Syria's President Ahmed al-Sharaa speaks during the ceremony announcing the new Syrian government at the People's Palace. Photo: Moawia Atrash/dpa
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Syria Swears in New Transitional Government

29 March 2025, Syria, Damascus: Syria's President Ahmed al-Sharaa speaks during the ceremony announcing the new Syrian government at the People's Palace. Photo: Moawia Atrash/dpa
29 March 2025, Syria, Damascus: Syria's President Ahmed al-Sharaa speaks during the ceremony announcing the new Syrian government at the People's Palace. Photo: Moawia Atrash/dpa

Syria’s new transitional government was sworn in Saturday nearly four months after the Assad family was removed from power and as the new authorities in Damascus work to bring back stability to the war-torn country.

The 23-member Cabinet, which is religiously and ethnically mixed, is the first in the country’s five-year transitional period and replaces the interim government that was formed shortly after Bashar Assad was removed from power in early December, The Associated Press reported.

The Cabinet does not have a prime minister since according to the temporary constitution signed by interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa earlier this month, the government will have a secretary general.

The government that was announced ahead of Eid el-Fitr, the feast that marks the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan that starts in Syria on Monday, includes new faces apart from the ministers of foreign affairs and defense. They kept the posts they held in the interim government. Syria's new Interior Minister Anas Khattab was until recently the head of the intelligence department.

“The formation of a new government today is a declaration of our joint will to build a new state,” al-Sharaa said in a speech marking the formation of the government.

Defense Minister Murhaf Abu Qasra said his main goal will be to build a professional army “from the people and for the people.”

The government did not include members of the US-backed and Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces or the autonomous civil administration in northeast Syria. Al-Sharaa and SDF commander Mazloum Abdi signed a breakthrough deal earlier this month in Damascus on a nationwide ceasefire and the merging of the US-backed force into the Syrian army.

Among the new ministers whose names were announced late Saturday night were Hind Kabawat, a Christian activist who was opposed to Assad since the conflict began in March 2011. Kabawat was named minister of minister of social affairs and labor.

Another minister is Raed Saleh, who for years headed the Syrian Civil Defense, also known as White Helmets, and was named minister for emergency disasters. A Damascus-based Syrian Kurd, Mohammed Terko was named minister of education.

Mohammed al-Bashir, who has headed Syria’s interim government since Assad’s fall, was named minister of energy whose main mission will be to restore the electricity and oil sectors that were badly damaged during the conflict.

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Arab World

Iraq, Kurds Say Country Not a Launchpad Against Neighbors

Smoke rises after an explosion near Erbil International Airport in Erbil on March 6, 2026. (AFP)
Smoke rises after an explosion near Erbil International Airport in Erbil on March 6, 2026. (AFP)
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Iraq, Kurds Say Country Not a Launchpad Against Neighbors

Smoke rises after an explosion near Erbil International Airport in Erbil on March 6, 2026. (AFP)
Smoke rises after an explosion near Erbil International Airport in Erbil on March 6, 2026. (AFP)

The Iraqi government and the autonomous Kurdistan region said Friday that Iraq must not be a launchpad for attacks against neighboring countries, following reports that militants might attempt to cross into Iran.

Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani and Kurdistan's regional president Nechirvan Barzani agreed in a phone call "that Iraqi territory must not be used as a launching point for attacks against neighboring countries", the premier's media office said.

Tehran threatened Friday to target "all the facilities" of Iraq's autonomous region if exiled Kurdish Iranian militants were allowed to enter Iran.

Arab World

Kurdish Iranian Dissidents in Iraq Deny Attack Plans but Say They Would Join a US Invasion of Iran

Members of the Kurdistan Freedom Party PAK stand guard in Erbil, Iraq, Thursday, March 5, 2026. (AP)
Members of the Kurdistan Freedom Party PAK stand guard in Erbil, Iraq, Thursday, March 5, 2026. (AP)
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Kurdish Iranian Dissidents in Iraq Deny Attack Plans but Say They Would Join a US Invasion of Iran

Members of the Kurdistan Freedom Party PAK stand guard in Erbil, Iraq, Thursday, March 5, 2026. (AP)
Members of the Kurdistan Freedom Party PAK stand guard in Erbil, Iraq, Thursday, March 5, 2026. (AP)

Officials with one of the armed Kurdish Iranian dissident groups based in northern Iraq told The Associated Press that they are not planning an imminent cross-border attack on Iran but would join a ground invasion if the US were to launch one.

The comments appeared to be aimed at reassuring Iraqi Kurdish officials, who have said they do not want attacks to be launched against Iran from their territory, fearing that they will be further dragged into the war in the Middle East sparked by the US and Israel’s strikes on Iran.

In the event of a US ground operation, “then we would enter alongside the coalition forces,” said Khalil Nadiri, an official with the Kurdistan Freedom Party PAK, in an interview with the AP Thursday. But he said, “The Kurds must not place themselves as the spearhead of the attack.”

He added that his group also has armed members already present inside of Iran and that they would not necessarily require cross-border support if they were to stage an uprising.

Nadiri said the Kurdish groups have been in contact with the US and Israel but denied having received any material aid from them.

The comments came after Kurdish officials said earlier this week that the Kurdish Iranian dissident groups based in northern Iraq are preparing for a potential cross-border military operation in Iran, and the US had asked Iraqi Kurds to support them

Rebaz Sharifi, a military commander with the PAK, said it would be “a very positive development” if the US and its allies were to arm the Kurdish groups, but also denied that they have received any such support so far.

Sharifi said he expects that at some point, US President Donald Trump “might want the peshmerga forces of Eastern Kurdistan to participate in the conflict during a ground invasion” and “if it reaches that point, we, for our part, would be pleased with it.”

However, the two officials sought to dispel the fears of Iraqi Kurdish officials that Iraq’s semiautonomous Kurdish region would be used as a launching pad.

Peshawa Hawramani, spokesperson for the Kurdistan Regional Government, said in a statement earlier this week that “allegations claiming that we are part of a plan to arm and send Kurdish opposition parties into Iranian territory are completely unfounded” and that the Iraqi Kurdish parties do not want to “expand the war and tensions in the region.”

Already Iran and allied Iraqi militias have launched dozens of missiles and drone attacks into northern Iraq, targeting the US bases and consulate in Irbil as well as bases of the Iranian Kurdish dissident groups.

Sharifi said PAK's bases have been attacked twice with ballistic missiles and four times with drones since the start of the war, killing one of their fighters and wounding three others.

Nadiri said that “since the (Iraqi) Kurdistan region has adopted a policy of not becoming a part of this conflict and because we do not want to disrupt the stability and security here and we respect the laws of this region, consequently, the environment has not yet been established for us to move our forces back into Eastern Kurdistan.”

He was using the term used by Kurdish groups to refer to the Kurdish region of Iran.

The potential military involvement of the Kurds has raised tensions with other Iranian opposition groups - notably the faction led by the former shah’s son, Reza Pahlavi, who has accused the Kurds of being separatists aiming to carve up Iran.

Sharifi said that his group's “ultimate goal is the statehood of the Kurds in all four regions and the reunification of Kurdistan,” referring to the Kurdish areas that are currently split among Iran, Iraq, Türkiyeand Syria.

Nadiri said that a confederal system could be a “viable solution” that would allow the Kurdish area to remain part of Iran while maintaining its “own sovereignty, identity, and unique characteristics.”

Arab World

UN Demands Swift Probe into Israeli Strikes on Lebanon

A fireball ascends from the site of an Israeli airstrike that targeted an area in Beirut's southern suburbs on March 6, 2026. (AFP)
A fireball ascends from the site of an Israeli airstrike that targeted an area in Beirut's southern suburbs on March 6, 2026. (AFP)
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UN Demands Swift Probe into Israeli Strikes on Lebanon

A fireball ascends from the site of an Israeli airstrike that targeted an area in Beirut's southern suburbs on March 6, 2026. (AFP)
A fireball ascends from the site of an Israeli airstrike that targeted an area in Beirut's southern suburbs on March 6, 2026. (AFP)

The United Nations on Friday demanded swift investigations into fatal Israeli strikes across Lebanon to decide if they complied with international law.

"Lebanon is becoming a key flashpoint," UN rights chief Volker Turk told reporters in Geneva.

"I call for an immediate cessation of hostilities."

Lebanon has been engulfed by the expanding Middle East war, after the Iran-backed group Hezbollah on Monday fired missiles at Israel to avenge the death of Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei.

Israel responded with waves of air strikes, and Thursday night it escalated its response by hitting Beirut's southern suburbs where Hezbollah is active -- after warning the area's hundreds of thousands of residents to flee.

Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam has warned that "a humanitarian disaster is looming" due to the mass displacement.

Turk said he was particularly worried about Israel's "blanket, massive displacement orders" for Beirut's southern suburbs, the Bekaa region and the full area to the south of the Litani river.

These orders were impacting "hundreds of thousands of people", he said, raising "serious concern under international humanitarian law and in particular when it comes to issues around forced transfer".

Turk's spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani cautioned that the orders risked amounting to "prohibited forced displacement" under international law.

The mass displacement, coupled with "continued air strikes on different parts of the country, are bringing more misery and suffering to an already weary civilian population", she told reporters.

The Israeli military announced Friday that it had carried out 26 waves of strikes on Beirut's southern suburbs in the past four days.

Late Thursday, Lebanon's health ministry said Israeli strikes since Monday had killed 123 people.

Shamdasani pointed to reports that at least eight people were killed in a strike on a residential building in Baalbek on Wednesday, including three girls and two women, and a family of four reportedly died when a building was struck in the Nabatyeh district on Thursday.

"Prompt and thorough investigations must be conducted, particularly to determine whether such attacks complied with the principles of distinction, proportionality and precaution," she said.

Shamdasani highlighted that "Hezbollah has continued launching barrages of rockets into Israel, striking residential areas in the north and the center of the country, with at least three people reportedly injured".

This, she said, raised "concerns, once again, about indiscriminate attacks against civilians".

She called for "urgent de-escalation", insisting "the sovereignty of Lebanon and the human rights of its people must be respected", she said.