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Two TV Journalists Freed in Sudan after Mass Street Protests

Sudanese demonstrators in the streets of the capital Khartoum in protest at the army's October 25 coup. (AFP)
Sudanese demonstrators in the streets of the capital Khartoum in protest at the army's October 25 coup. (AFP)
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Two TV Journalists Freed in Sudan after Mass Street Protests

Sudanese demonstrators in the streets of the capital Khartoum in protest at the army's October 25 coup. (AFP)
Sudanese demonstrators in the streets of the capital Khartoum in protest at the army's October 25 coup. (AFP)

Sudanese security forces have released two journalists from Saudi Arabia's Asharq television channel, a day after detaining them as deadly violence flared during renewed protests against the military government, the station said Friday.

During Thursday's protests in and near Khartoum, "five uniformed security officers" held journalists Maha al-Talb and Sally Othman and their teams in their office for several hours, the channel said.

Sudan has been gripped by turmoil since military leader General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan launched a coup on October 25 and detained Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok.

Hamdok was reinstated on November 21, but mass protests have continued as demonstrators distrust Burhan's promises of seeking to guide the country toward full democracy.

Protesters charge that the deal simply aims to give the cloak of legitimacy to the generals, whom they accuse of trying to continue the regime built by former president Omar al-Bashir, who was toppled in 2019 following mass protests.

In the worst street clashes since Hamdok's return, five demonstrators were killed and dozens wounded by bullets on Thursday, said the independent Doctors' Committee, which is part of the pro-democracy movement.

Authorities also cut phone lines and the internet and cracked down on media, also including the satellite channel Al-Arabiya.

Othman was interrupted by security forces in the middle of a live broadcast and can be heard saying in a clip shared widely on social networks: "I will not be able to continue, the authorities are now forbidding me to continue with you".

Sudanese police blamed the incident on "reprehensible individual actions" which would be investigated.

The Doctors' Committee charged that "crimes against humanity" were committed in Omdurman, twin city of the capital Khartoum, on Thursday.

It said five demonstrators were killed by bullets to the head or chest, and that ambulances were blocked and at least one seriously injured person was forcibly removed from an ambulance by the security forces.

A police spokesman said four people died in Thursday's unrest and 297 people were injured, "including 49 police officers".

He also said "three police vans were set on fire" and accused protest "leaders clearly hostile to the security forces" of having sought to "turn a peaceful march into violence and confrontations with the security forces".

Street clashes since the October coup have claimed 53 lives and left hundreds wounded, and supporters of civilian rule in Sudan have continued to call for protests.

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US Pulls Out of Two More Bases in Syria, Worrying Kurdish Forces

SDF forces in Syria. (AFP file)
SDF forces in Syria. (AFP file)
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US Pulls Out of Two More Bases in Syria, Worrying Kurdish Forces

SDF forces in Syria. (AFP file)
SDF forces in Syria. (AFP file)

US forces have pulled out of two more bases in northeastern Syria, visiting Reuters reporters found, accelerating a troop drawdown that the commander of US-backed Syrian Kurdish forces said was allowing a resurgence of ISIS.

Reuters reporters who visited the two bases in the past week found them mostly deserted, both guarded by small contingents of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) - the Kurdish-led military group that Washington has backed in the fight against ISIS for a decade.

Cameras used on bases occupied by the US-led military coalition had been taken down, and razor wire on the outer perimeters had begun to sag.

A Kurdish politician who lives on one base said there were no longer US troops there. SDF guards at the second base said troops had left recently but declined to say when. The Pentagon declined to comment.

It is the first confirmation on the ground by reporters that the US has withdrawn from Al-Wazir and Tel Baydar bases in Hasaka province. It brings to at least four the number of bases in Syria US troops have left since President Donald Trump took office.

Trump’s administration said this month it will scale down its military presence in Syria to one base from eight in parts of northeastern Syria that the SDF controls. The New York Times reported in April that troops might be reduced from 2,000 to 500 in the drawdown.

The SDF did not respond to questions about the current number of troops and open US bases in northeastern Syria.

But SDF commander Mazloum Abdi, who spoke to Reuters at another US base, Al Shadadi, said the presence of a few hundred troops on one base would be "not enough" to contain the threat of ISIS.

"The threat of ISIS has significantly increased recently. But this is the US military’s plan. We’ve known about it for a long time ... and we’re working with them to make sure there are no gaps and we can maintain pressure on ISIS," he said.

Abdi spoke to Reuters on Friday, hours after Israel launched its air war on Iran. He declined to comment on how the new Israel-Iran war would affect Syria, saying simply that he hoped it would not spill over there and that he felt safe on a US base.

Hours after the interview, three Iranian-made missiles targeted the Al Shadadi base and were shot down by US defense systems, two SDF security sources said.

ISIS ACTIVE IN SYRIAN CITIES

ISIS ruled vast swathes of Iraq and Syria from 2014 to 2017 during Syria’s civil war, imposing a vision of religious rule under which it beheaded locals in city squares, sex-trafficked members of the Yazidi minority and executed foreign journalists and aid workers.

The group, from its strongholds in Raqqa in Syria and Mosul in Iraq, also launched deadly attacks in European and Middle Eastern countries.

A US-led military Coalition of more than 80 countries waged a yearslong campaign to defeat the group and end its territorial control, supporting Iraqi forces and the SDF.

But ISIS has been reinvigorated since the ouster of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad in December at the hands of separate opposition factions.

Abdi said ISIS cells had become active in several Syrian cities, including Damascus, and that a group of foreign extremists who once battled the Syrian regime had joined its ranks. He did not elaborate.

He said ISIS had seized weapons and ammunition from Syrian regime depots in the chaos after Assad's fall.

Several Kurdish officials told Reuters that ISIS had already begun moving more openly around US bases which had recently been shuttered, including near the cities of Deir Ezzor and Raqqa, once strongholds for the extremist group.

In areas the SDF controls east of the Euphrates River, ISIS has waged a series of attacks and killed at least 10 SDF fighters and security forces, Abdi said. Attacks included a roadside bomb targeting a convoy of oil tankers on a road near the US base where he gave the interview.