Pompeo Confirms he Wants to Remove Sudan from Terror List

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Reuters file photo
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Reuters file photo
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Pompeo Confirms he Wants to Remove Sudan from Terror List

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Reuters file photo
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Reuters file photo

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Thursday he wants to delist Sudan as a state sponsor of terrorism, seeing a historic opportunity in its civilian transition.

Pompeo has repeatedly indicated that the State Department hopes to remove the designation, which severely impedes investment to Sudan, but disputes have arisen on a compensation package over the 1998 bombings of two US embassies, Agence France Presse reported.

Pompeo told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that legislation on a settlement should come before Congress "in the very, very near term."

"I think lifting the state sponsor of terrorism designation there if we can... take care of the victims of those tragedies would be a good thing for American foreign policy," Pompeo said.

Pompeo said that the fall of president Omar al-Bashir following mass protests and the nearly year-old government of a civilian prime minister, Abdalla Hamdok, marked "an opportunity that doesn't come along often."

"There's a chance not only for a democracy to begin to be built out, but perhaps regional opportunities that could flow from that as well," he said.

Bashir had welcomed Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden and Sudan was accused of aiding militants who blew up the embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, killing 224 people and injuring around 5,000 others.

Sudan's new government has agreed to a compensation package but a dispute has arisen over higher payments to Americans than to Africans, who accounted for the vast majority of the casualties, AFP reported.

Senator Chris Coons, a Democrat known for his interest in Africa, urged Pompeo to "do everything you can" to support Hamdok and seize the chance "to build a new democratic partner in the region."



Syrian Authorities Announce Closure of Notorious Desert Camp

 A boy carries bricks as he helps to restore a home in al-Qaryatayn, eastern part of Syria's Homs province, Tuesday, June 3, 2025. (AP)
A boy carries bricks as he helps to restore a home in al-Qaryatayn, eastern part of Syria's Homs province, Tuesday, June 3, 2025. (AP)
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Syrian Authorities Announce Closure of Notorious Desert Camp

 A boy carries bricks as he helps to restore a home in al-Qaryatayn, eastern part of Syria's Homs province, Tuesday, June 3, 2025. (AP)
A boy carries bricks as he helps to restore a home in al-Qaryatayn, eastern part of Syria's Homs province, Tuesday, June 3, 2025. (AP)

A notorious desert refugee camp in Syria has closed after the last remaining families returned to their areas of origin, Syrian authorities said on Saturday.

The Rukban camp in Syria's desert was established in 2014, at the height of Syria's civil war, in a de-confliction zone controlled by the US-led coalition fighting the ISIS group, near the borders with Jordan and Iraq.

Desperate people fleeing ISIS extremists and former government bombardment sought refuge there, hoping to cross into Jordan.

Former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government rarely allowed aid to enter the camp and neighboring countries closed their borders to the area, isolating Rukban for years.

After an opposition offensive toppled Assad in December, families started leaving the camp to return home.

The Syrian Emergency Task Force, a US-based organization, said on Friday that the camp was "officially closed and empty, all families and residents have returned to their homes".

Syrian Information Minister Hamza al-Mustafa said on X on Saturday that "with the dismantlement of the Rukban camp and the return of the displaced, a tragic and sorrowful chapter of displacement stories created by the bygone regime's war machine comes to a close".

"Rukban was not just a camp, it was the triangle of death that bore witness to the cruelty of siege and starvation, where the regime left people to face their painful fate in the barren desert," he added.

At its peak, the camp housed more than 100,000 people. Around 8,000 people still lived there before Assad's fall, residing in mud-brick houses, with food and basic supplies smuggled in at high prices.

Syrian minister for emergency situations and disasters Raed al-Saleh said on X said the camp's closure represents "the end of one of the harshest humanitarian tragedies faced by our displaced people".

"We hope this step marks the beginning of a path that ends the suffering of the remaining camps and returns their residents to their homes with dignity and safety," he added.

According to the International Organization for Migration, 1.87 million Syrians have returned to their places of origin since Assad's fall, after they were displaced within the country or abroad.

The IOM says the "lack of economic opportunities and essential services pose the greatest challenge" for those returning home.