Makhlouf Says ‘Miracle Solution’ Underway for Syria Crisis

Rami Makhlouf, Asharq Al-Awsat
Rami Makhlouf, Asharq Al-Awsat
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Makhlouf Says ‘Miracle Solution’ Underway for Syria Crisis

Rami Makhlouf, Asharq Al-Awsat
Rami Makhlouf, Asharq Al-Awsat

Rami Makhlouf, Syrian business tycoon and maternal cousin of President Bashar al-Assad, predicted on Thursday that a “miracle” settlement will soon lift Syria out of the chaos and devastation brought about by over a decade of civil war.

“The important thing today is to inform the Syrians of this message. The solution would be a miracle. How? What is the method? This is something I will keep to myself,” said Makhlouf in a video he posted on Facebook.

Branding his statements as “good news for Syrians,” Makhlouf said the solution will be “comprehensive, reached in the next few months and miraculous in the sense that all Syrians will support it.”

He voiced hope that the solution he is heralding is “real and would spell the end of suffering for Syrians.”

Makhlouf, in this video, avoided mentioning Assad and war profiteers, both of whom were at the center of the businessman’s more critical videos and posts on social media.

Makhlouf pled for the regime, namely his cousin, intervening to stop war-exploiting racketeers who raided one of his offices, stole important documents and used fraud and forgery to seize some of his assets.

Moreover, Makhlouf’s mobile network carrier, Syriatel, was placed under judicial custody in 2020.

The decision regarding Syriatel, one of only two carriers in the country, was taken to "guarantee the rights of the public treasury and the rights of the shareholders in the company", Syria’s administrative court wrote on Facebook.

Makhlouf called the asset seizure illegal and an attempt by the government to take the company away from him.

A court then placed a travel ban on Makhlouf, pending settlement of the dispute.



Three Palestinians Killed in Standoff with Security Forces in West Bank

Palestinians inspect the damage done to a mosque, after a reported attack by Israeli settlers, in the town of Marda near the West Bank city of Salfit on December 20, 2024. (AFP)
Palestinians inspect the damage done to a mosque, after a reported attack by Israeli settlers, in the town of Marda near the West Bank city of Salfit on December 20, 2024. (AFP)
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Three Palestinians Killed in Standoff with Security Forces in West Bank

Palestinians inspect the damage done to a mosque, after a reported attack by Israeli settlers, in the town of Marda near the West Bank city of Salfit on December 20, 2024. (AFP)
Palestinians inspect the damage done to a mosque, after a reported attack by Israeli settlers, in the town of Marda near the West Bank city of Salfit on December 20, 2024. (AFP)

A Palestinian man and his son were killed in Jenin, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, local medical officials said on Friday, as a month-long standoff between Palestinian security forces and armed militant groups in the town continued.

Separately, a security forces officer died in what Palestinian Authority (PA) officials said was an accident, bringing to six the total number of the security forces to have died in the operation in Jenin which began on Dec. 5. There were no further details.

The PA denied that its forces killed the 44-year-old man and his son, who were shot as they stood on the roof of their house in the Jenin refugee camp, a crowded quarter that houses descendants of Palestinians who fled or were driven out in the 1948 Middle East war. The man's daughter was also wounded in the incident, Reuters reported.

At least eight Palestinians have been killed in Jenin over the past month, one of them a member of the armed Jenin Brigades, which includes members of the armed wings of the Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Fatah factions.

Palestinian security forces moved into Jenin last month in an operation officials say is aimed at suppressing armed groups of "outlaws" who have built up a power base in the city and its adjacent refugee camp.

The operation has deepened splits among Palestinians in the West Bank, where the PA enjoys little popular support but where many fear being dragged into a Gaza-style conflict with Israel if the militant groups strengthen their hold.

Jenin, in the northern West Bank, has been a center of Palestinian militant groups for decades and armed factions have resisted repeated attempts to dislodge them by the Israeli military over the years.

The PA set up three decades ago under the Oslo interim peace accords, exercises limited sovereignty in parts of the West Bank and has claimed a role in administering Gaza once fighting in the enclave is concluded.

The PA is dominated by the Fatah faction of President Mahmoud Abbas and has long had a tense relationship with Hamas, with which it fought a brief civil war in Gaza in 2006 before Hamas drove it out of the enclave.