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Syria Says its Forces Have Taken over al-Tanf Base after a Handover from the US

FILE: Members of the Maghawir al-Thawra Syrian opposition group receive firearms training from US Army Special Forces soldiers at the al-Tanf military outpost in southern Syria in 2018. (AP/Lolita Baldor)
FILE: Members of the Maghawir al-Thawra Syrian opposition group receive firearms training from US Army Special Forces soldiers at the al-Tanf military outpost in southern Syria in 2018. (AP/Lolita Baldor)
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Syria Says its Forces Have Taken over al-Tanf Base after a Handover from the US

FILE: Members of the Maghawir al-Thawra Syrian opposition group receive firearms training from US Army Special Forces soldiers at the al-Tanf military outpost in southern Syria in 2018. (AP/Lolita Baldor)
FILE: Members of the Maghawir al-Thawra Syrian opposition group receive firearms training from US Army Special Forces soldiers at the al-Tanf military outpost in southern Syria in 2018. (AP/Lolita Baldor)

Syrian government forces have taken control of a base in the east of the country that was run for years by US troops as part of the war against the ISIS group, the Defense Ministry said in a statement Thursday.

The al-Tanf base sits on a strategic location, close to the borders with Jordan and Iraq. In a terse statement, the Syrian Defense Ministry said the handover of the base took place in coordination with the US military and Syrian forces are now “securing the base and its perimeters.”

The US military did not immediately respond to an email from The Associated Press regarding the Syrian statement.

The Syrian Defense Ministry also said that Syrian troops are now in place in the desert area around the al-Tanf garrison, with border guards to deploy in the coming days.

The deployment of Syrian troops at al-Tanf and in the surrounding areas comes after last month’s deal between the government and the US-backed and Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF, to merge into the military.

Al-Tanf garrison was repeatedly attacked over the past years with drones by Iran-backed groups but such attacks have dropped sharply following the fall of Bashar Assad’s government in Syria in December 2024.

Syria’s interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa has been expanding his control of the country, and last month government forces captured wide parts of northeast Syria after deadly clashes with the SDF. A ceasefire was later reached between the two sides.

Al-Tanf base played a major role in the fight against the ISIS group that declared a caliphate in large parts of Syria and Iraq in 2014. ISIS was defeated in Iraq in 2017 and in Syria two years later.

Over the past weeks, the US military began transferring thousands of ISIS prisoners from prisons run by the SDF in northeastern Syria to Iraq, where they will be prosecuted.

The number of US troops posted in Syria has changed over the years.

The number of US troops increased to more than 2,000 after the Oct. 7, 2023, attack by Hamas in Israel, as Iranian-backed militants targeted American troops and interests in the region in response to Israel’s bombardment of Gaza.

The force has since been drawn back down to around 900.

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Arab World

Israeli Strikes Pound South, East Lebanon

Plumes of smoke billow from southern Lebanon following Israeli strikes, as seen from Marjeyoun, Lebanon May 24, 2026. (Reuters)
Plumes of smoke billow from southern Lebanon following Israeli strikes, as seen from Marjeyoun, Lebanon May 24, 2026. (Reuters)
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Israeli Strikes Pound South, East Lebanon

Plumes of smoke billow from southern Lebanon following Israeli strikes, as seen from Marjeyoun, Lebanon May 24, 2026. (Reuters)
Plumes of smoke billow from southern Lebanon following Israeli strikes, as seen from Marjeyoun, Lebanon May 24, 2026. (Reuters)

Israeli strikes hit south and east Lebanon on Sunday, state media reported, a day after 11 people were killed in a single raid on the south despite a ceasefire in the Israel-Hezbollah war.

Saturday's strike in Sir al-Gharbiyeh "resulted in a massacre whose final toll is 11 dead including a child and six women, and nine wounded including four children and a woman," Lebanon's health ministry said in a statement.

Israel's military has continued to strike what it says are Hezbollah targets in Lebanon despite a ceasefire that began on April 17 and that was recently extended for several weeks.

The Iran-backed group has also maintained attacks on Israeli targets in southern Lebanon and across the border, including firing rockets on Sunday at Israeli troops operating on Lebanese territory.

Lebanon's official National News Agency reported Israeli strikes on multiple locations in south and east Lebanon on Sunday, in some cases causing casualties.

Some of the raids came before the Israeli military issued two evacuation warnings covering more than a dozen villages in Lebanon's south and the eastern Bekaa valley.

An AFP correspondent saw large clouds of smoke rising after strikes on the south's Nabatieh and Zawtar al-Sharqiyah.

Lebanon's civil defense agency said early on Sunday that its regional facility in Nabatieh had been destroyed by an overnight Israeli strike.

An AFP photographer saw civil defense personnel recovering equipment and using a stretcher to remove oxygen bottles from the rubble.

The Israeli army did not immediately provide any comment on the strike in response to an inquiry from AFP's Jerusalem bureau.

- Iran -

Hezbollah lawmaker Hassan Fadlallah, whom the US sanctioned this week, said Sunday that "major transformations are taking place in the region", amid anticipation that a US-Iranian agreement to end the Middle East war was close.

Iran "has made its agreement with the United States conditional on stopping the war in Lebanon", he said, according to a statement.

On Saturday, Hezbollah said its chief Naim Qassem had received a message from Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, saying Iran's latest proposal through Pakistani mediators emphasized "the demand to include Lebanon" in the broader ceasefire.

Fadlallah said that "the war will not just stop in Iran, but across the whole region, particularly in Lebanon", urging Lebanese authorities to "take advantage of this regional umbrella... which will have repercussions on us".

Lebanese authorities recently began landmark direct talks with Israel under US auspices, and have insisted the discussions must be independent from the Iran-US negotiations.

Hezbollah drew Lebanon into the Middle East war on March 2 with rocket fire at Israel in retaliation for the killing of Iran's supreme leader in US-Israeli strikes.

Under the terms of the ceasefire published by Washington, Israel reserves the right to act against "planned, imminent or ongoing attacks".

Israeli troops who invaded Lebanon are also operating inside an Israeli-occupied "yellow line" running around 10 kilometers (six miles) deep along Lebanon's southern border.

Arab World

Gaza Hospital Says Child among Three Killed in Israeli Strike

Residents inspect the rubble of a building that belongs to the Palestinian family of Abu Saif and was destroyed by an Israeli airstrike in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip, Saturday, May 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Residents inspect the rubble of a building that belongs to the Palestinian family of Abu Saif and was destroyed by an Israeli airstrike in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip, Saturday, May 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
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Gaza Hospital Says Child among Three Killed in Israeli Strike

Residents inspect the rubble of a building that belongs to the Palestinian family of Abu Saif and was destroyed by an Israeli airstrike in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip, Saturday, May 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Residents inspect the rubble of a building that belongs to the Palestinian family of Abu Saif and was destroyed by an Israeli airstrike in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip, Saturday, May 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

A pre-dawn Israeli airstrike killed three members of a Palestinian family, including a one-year-old child, in central Gaza on Sunday, a hospital said.

Gaza remains gripped with daily violence despite a formal ceasefire in place since October, with both the Israeli military and Hamas accusing one another of violating the truce, says AFP.

Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital in Deir el-Balah said it had received the bodies of a couple and their infant after an Israeli strike hit a residential apartment in the Al-Nuseirat camp before dawn.

The hospital said around 10 people were wounded.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military about the three deaths, though it said it had struck three Hamas weapons storage facilities in central Gaza over the preceding 24 hours.

A ceasefire has been in place in Gaza since October, but Israel reserves the right to strike targets it deems a threat.

At least 890 Palestinians have been killed since the October 10 ceasefire, according to Gaza's health ministry, which operates under Hamas authority and whose figures are considered reliable by the UN.

The Israeli military says five of its soldiers have also been hit during the same period.

Media restrictions and limited access in Gaza have prevented AFP from independently verifying casualty figures or freely covering the fighting.

Arab World

Iraq’s Nujaba Movement Warns against ‘US Plot’ to Integrate PMF in New Security Ministry

Slain Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamanei (R) and Nujaba Movement leader Akram al-Kaabi in Tehran in December 2018. (Supreme leader’s website)
Slain Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamanei (R) and Nujaba Movement leader Akram al-Kaabi in Tehran in December 2018. (Supreme leader’s website)
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Iraq’s Nujaba Movement Warns against ‘US Plot’ to Integrate PMF in New Security Ministry

Slain Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamanei (R) and Nujaba Movement leader Akram al-Kaabi in Tehran in December 2018. (Supreme leader’s website)
Slain Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamanei (R) and Nujaba Movement leader Akram al-Kaabi in Tehran in December 2018. (Supreme leader’s website)

The Iran-aligned Nujaba Movement in Iraq warned on Saturday against an “American plot” to merge the pro-Iran Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) in state institutions, presenting new Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi with his first test in imposing state monopoly over arms.

It made its warning in wake of a visit to Iraq earlier this week by former US Central Command Commander David Petraeus, who also previously led US forces stationed in Iraq.

The new Iraqi government appears to be a taking a tougher stance against the Iran-aligned armed factions in the country in wake of attacks launched from Iraq against Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Riyadh and Abu Dhabi have said the attacks were launched from Iraqi territory. Zaidi has slammed the attacks as “criminal acts”.

Spokesperson for the Commander-in-Chief of the Iraqi Armed Forces Sabah al-Numan said the committee probing the attacks will cooperate with Riyadh and Abu Dhabi to uncover the perpetrators.

“The official statements are not up for debate: the security of our brothers is a read line and there can be no replacing the rule of law,” he said in statements carried by the official state news agency INA.

Any party found responsible for the attacks will face judicial and military measures, he vowed, adding that the attacks were a “threat to Iraq’s national security and flagrant violation of its sovereignty”.

On the state monopoly over arms, al-Numan said the decision “is not a mere political slogan, but a security strategy that must be implemented.”

“The success of the government will be measured by how much it establishes itself as the sole party that holds power over weapons,” he stressed.

Prominent armed factions, such as the Kataib Hezbollah and Kataib Sayyid al-Shuhada, have not made any statements over the recent developments.

The Nujaba Movement, however, has openly defied the state’s decision to impose monopoly over weapons.

The party, which is seen as the most hardline, has also rejected attempts to restructure the PMF.

Deputy head of the movement’s executive council Hussein al-Saeedi said: “The resistance’s weapons are not open to compromise.”

“Stripping the factions of their weapons will leave society exposed to the ongoing threats,” he declared from Basra.

He also slammed as an “American plot” the alleged plan to merge the PMF with the federal police and other forces as part of a new “federal security ministry”.

He said such efforts are “futile” and “impossible to execute”, warning that insisting on forging ahead with the plan will have “political and popular implications.”