Bukhari: Saudi Arabia Stands With the Lebanese

Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdullatif Derian received Saudi Ambassador Walid Bukhari on Tuesday at Dar-al-Fatwa in Beirut | NNA
Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdullatif Derian received Saudi Ambassador Walid Bukhari on Tuesday at Dar-al-Fatwa in Beirut | NNA
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Bukhari: Saudi Arabia Stands With the Lebanese

Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdullatif Derian received Saudi Ambassador Walid Bukhari on Tuesday at Dar-al-Fatwa in Beirut | NNA
Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdullatif Derian received Saudi Ambassador Walid Bukhari on Tuesday at Dar-al-Fatwa in Beirut | NNA

Saudi Ambassador to Lebanon Walid Bukhari said that the Kingdom was keen on Lebanon’s security, safety, and stability.

Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdullatif Derian received Bukhari on Tuesday at Dar-al-Fatwa in Beirut.

An official statement said that during the meeting, Ambassador Bukhari highlighted “keenness on Lebanon’s security, safety, and stability,” and reiterated the Kingdom’s support for all the Lebanese.

He also valued the “unifying role assumed by Dar-al-Fatwa,” hoping that the current crisis would end soon and that prosperity and safety would return to Lebanon.

Commenting on the announcement of the US peace plan, known as the “Deal of the Century”, Bukhari renewed Saudi Arabia’s solidarity with the Palestinian people and their legitimate rights.

“Saudi Arabia is committed to a just solution that ensures the rights of the Palestinian people and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with east Jerusalem as its capital,” he said.



UN Investigators Want to Preserve Evidence of Atrocities in Syria

 A drone view shows the site of a mass grave from the rule of Syria's Bashar al-Assad, according to residents, after the ousting of al-Assad, in Najha, Syria, December 17, 2024. (Reuters)
A drone view shows the site of a mass grave from the rule of Syria's Bashar al-Assad, according to residents, after the ousting of al-Assad, in Najha, Syria, December 17, 2024. (Reuters)
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UN Investigators Want to Preserve Evidence of Atrocities in Syria

 A drone view shows the site of a mass grave from the rule of Syria's Bashar al-Assad, according to residents, after the ousting of al-Assad, in Najha, Syria, December 17, 2024. (Reuters)
A drone view shows the site of a mass grave from the rule of Syria's Bashar al-Assad, according to residents, after the ousting of al-Assad, in Najha, Syria, December 17, 2024. (Reuters)

A UN-backed team investigating years of crimes in war-torn Syria says it has reached out to its new government and hopes to deploy to help gather and preserve evidence on the ground -- in hopes of bringing torturers, killers and other war criminals to justice one day.

Robert Petit, head of the international, impartial and independent mechanism on Syria, said its team has reason to believe that mass graves exist across Syria, but exhumation, DNA collection and tests for cause of death require “a lot of resources.”

He provided no further details about any such mass graves.

Petit said the government of former President Bashar Assad, who fled Syria on Dec. 8, didn’t cooperate with his team, and the change of authority offers a chance to establish the fates of “tens of thousands of people” who died and suffered under his rule.

“We are awaiting a response,” from the rebels who now control Syria, he said. “And as soon as that response is forthcoming, we will deploy.”

A “monitoring cell” on the UN-backed team has collected recent images from social media, he said, while its sources on the ground have been able to collect new evidence and testimonies in the wake of Assad’s ouster.

The mechanism was created in 2016 by the UN General Assembly to collect, preserve, consolidate and analyze evidence of “serious crimes” committed in Syria since the civil war erupted in March 2011, Petit said. A UN-backed Commission of Inquiry is doing similar work.