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Algeria Receives Fugitive Senior Officer from Turkey

Late Algerian Army Chief of Staff Ahmed Gaed Salah, who died in late 2019 (Reuters)
Late Algerian Army Chief of Staff Ahmed Gaed Salah, who died in late 2019 (Reuters)
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Algeria Receives Fugitive Senior Officer from Turkey

Late Algerian Army Chief of Staff Ahmed Gaed Salah, who died in late 2019 (Reuters)
Late Algerian Army Chief of Staff Ahmed Gaed Salah, who died in late 2019 (Reuters)

Algerian authorities have received a fugitive senior military official who fled Algeria to Turkey days after its powerful army chief died in December.

Guermit Bounouira was handed over to Algerian security officials in Turkey on Thursday.

Charges on which the former army officer is being pursued were not mentioned, but he will face a military judge on Monday in Blida prison southwest of Algiers.

Bounouira, a top aide to late Army Chief Ahmed Gaed Salah, is described as the his “black box.”

Salah emerged last year as Algeria’s most powerful man when weekly mass protests succeeded in unseating the veteran president, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, and a host of other officials.

The Algerian News Agency quoted a statement by the Police Special Operations Group (GOSP) saying that “the retired first assistant, Guermit Bounouira, who fled from his country, was handed over and received thanks to the cooperation between the Algerian and Turkish police.”

The statement pointed out that Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune oversaw contacts with Ankara in this regard.

In other news, Tebboune signed on Sunday the decree amending and supplementing the penal code, which had been approved during the cabinet’s latest session.

“The new provision provides for the protection of all medical staff working in both public and private sector institutes against verbal and physical attacks,” according to a presidential statement.

It also punishes for acts of destruction of mobile and immobile property and acts of violence harming patients' dignity and deceased persons through social media sites.

The law approved further provides for a sentence of one to three years for any verbal assault, three to 10 years for any physical abuse, depending on the seriousness of the act, and a life sentence in case the person attacked dies.

Last month, Tebboune said doctors and nurses “are under the full protection of the Algerian state and people,” adding that he will issue a new bill “to protect all the country’s medical personnel and workers.”
He stressed these penalties would be “severe” and would range between “five to 10 years in prison” against any aggressor.

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Syria's New Foreign Minister to Appear at the UN in His First US Visit

Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad Hassan al-Shibani, left, and Jordan's Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi attend a round table meeting at the 9th international conference in support of Syria at the European Council building in Brussels, Monday, March 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)
Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad Hassan al-Shibani, left, and Jordan's Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi attend a round table meeting at the 9th international conference in support of Syria at the European Council building in Brussels, Monday, March 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)
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Syria's New Foreign Minister to Appear at the UN in His First US Visit

Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad Hassan al-Shibani, left, and Jordan's Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi attend a round table meeting at the 9th international conference in support of Syria at the European Council building in Brussels, Monday, March 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)
Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad Hassan al-Shibani, left, and Jordan's Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi attend a round table meeting at the 9th international conference in support of Syria at the European Council building in Brussels, Monday, March 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)

Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shibani was set to raise his country’s new flag at the United Nations headquarters in New York Friday and to attend a UN Security Council briefing, the first public appearance by a high-ranking Syrian government official in the United States since the fall of former President Bashar Assad in a lightning opposition offensive in December.

The three-starred flag that had previously been used by opposition groups has replaced the two-starred flag of the Assad era as the country's official emblem, the Associated Press said.

The new authorities in Damascus have been courting Washington in hopes of receiving relief from harsh sanctions that were imposed by the US and its allies in the wake of Assad’s brutal crackdown on anti-government protests in 2011 that spiraled into a civil war.

A delegation of Syrian officials traveled to the United States this week to attend World Bank and International Monetary Fund meetings in Washington and UN meetings in New York. It was unclear if Trump administration officials would meet with al-Shibani during the visit.

The Trump administration has yet to officially recognize the current Syrian government, led by Ahmad al-Sharaa, who led the offensive that toppled Assad. Washington has also so far left the sanctions in place, although it has provided temporary relief to some restrictions. The opposition group al-Sharaa led, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, remains a US-designated terrorist organization.

Two Republican members of the US Congress, Rep. Marlin Stutzman of Indiana and Rep. Cory Mills of Florida, arrived in Damascus last week on an unofficial visit organized by a Syrian-American nonprofit and met with al-Sharaa and other government officials.

Mills told The Associated Press before meeting with al-Sharaa that “ultimately, it’s going to be the president’s decision” to lift sanctions or not, although he said that “Congress can advise.”

Mills later told Bloomberg News that he had discussed the US conditions for sanctions relief with al-Sharaa, including ensuring the destruction of chemical weapons left over from the Assad era, coordinating on counter-terrorism, making a plan to deal with foreign militants who fought alongside the armed opposition to Assad, and providing assurances to Israel that Syria would not pose a threat.

He also said that al-Sharaa had said Syria could normalize relations with Israel “under the right conditions,” without specifying what those conditions are.

Other Western countries have warmed up to the new Syrian authorities more quickly. The British government on Thursday lifted sanctions against a dozen Syrian entities, including government departments and media outlets, and the European Union has begun to roll back its sanctions.