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Assad Orders Measures Against Rami Makhlouf’s Companies

A combination photo of Bashar Assad and Rami Makhlouf
A combination photo of Bashar Assad and Rami Makhlouf
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Assad Orders Measures Against Rami Makhlouf’s Companies

A combination photo of Bashar Assad and Rami Makhlouf
A combination photo of Bashar Assad and Rami Makhlouf

The head of the Syrian regime, Bashar Assad, has ordered a series of measures against companies owned by his cousin, Rami Makhlouf, in Syria, informed sources said on Tuesday.

The sources said the measures involve Makhlouf’s shares in the state-owned Syrian Telecom Company (Syriatel), the country’s biggest mobile phone company.

Makhlouf, Assad’s first cousin and the son of Mohammed Makhlouf, is considered a top businessmen in Syria.

In the past few years, Samer Foz appeared as a main competitor to Makhlouf, particularly after purchasing his stake at the Four Seasons hotel in the capital Damascus.

The European Union and the US have imposed sanctions on both Makhlouf and Foz due to their role in supporting the Syrian regime.

Makhlouf founded several companies, including Cham Holding. He was later linked to financing pro-regime forces and their linked militias, mainly through Al-Bustan Association.

The Syrian opposition website Kuluna Shuraka (All4Syria) reported on Tuesday that Moscow asked from Damascus a large sum of money and that Assad contacted his uncle, currently present in Russia, for this end.

However, the website said Makhlouf failed to provide the sum prompting the regime to ask a “committee tasked with fighting money laundering and the financing of terrorism, to start an investigation with 29 of the most powerful Syrian businessmen, including Makhlouf.”

The website said similar measures were taken against Mohammed Hamsho, a Syrian businessman with extensive links to the Syrian government and the Assad family.

The Damascus regime had earlier taken measures against Ayman Jaber, another businessman active in the Syrian coast.

Some opposition figures said on Tuesday that Moscow asked that Damascus pay $1billion.

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Arab World

Red Cross Delivers Essential Medical Supplies to Yemen’s Besieged Taiz City

Internally displaced people transport mattresses they received from a charity in the southwestern city of Taiz, Yemen October 29, 2026. (Reuters)
Internally displaced people transport mattresses they received from a charity in the southwestern city of Taiz, Yemen October 29, 2026. (Reuters)
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Red Cross Delivers Essential Medical Supplies to Yemen’s Besieged Taiz City

Internally displaced people transport mattresses they received from a charity in the southwestern city of Taiz, Yemen October 29, 2026. (Reuters)
Internally displaced people transport mattresses they received from a charity in the southwestern city of Taiz, Yemen October 29, 2026. (Reuters)

The Red Cross said on Wednesday it had delivered four truckloads of essential medical supplies to the besieged Yemeni city of Taiz after renewed fighting cut off access for weeks.

Taiz has been largely isolated for a month, with fighting preventing humanitarian supplies from entering the city and restricting the movement of civilians, after an escalation in clashes between the legitimate government and ‌the Iran-backed Houthi ‌militia.

Key supply routes, including the ‌Taiz-Aden ⁠corridor, have been blocked ⁠by Houthi militants, exacerbating shortages of water, food and fuel, while hospitals said they were under significant pressure and faced scarce medical supplies. The city hosts about half of the 300,000 people displaced across Yemen by the latest fighting, ⁠according to the UN.

The Red Cross ‌said the delivery ‌to Taiz of surgical kits to help hospitals treat patients ‌wounded in the renewed fighting was a ‌vital step in providing support to health facilities under extreme pressure since fresh hostilities began in September.

“For patients with severe injuries or critical medical conditions, regardless of ‌where they live or which side of the front line they find ⁠themselves on, ⁠timely access to medical care can be a matter of life or death,” said Christine Cipolla, the Red Cross head of delegation in Yemen.

She urged parties to the conflict to continue facilitating the safe and sustained access of humanitarian aid.

Hospitals across Yemen are struggling to cope with a sharp rise in war casualties, while intensified fighting along multiple front lines has cut off vital aid to around 800,000 people, humanitarian agencies have said.

Arab World

UK Ban on Palestine Action is Challenged at Top Court, Some Protesters Arrested

Supporters of Palestine Action stage a protest outside the Royal Court of Justice in London, Tuesday, April 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)
Supporters of Palestine Action stage a protest outside the Royal Court of Justice in London, Tuesday, April 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)
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UK Ban on Palestine Action is Challenged at Top Court, Some Protesters Arrested

Supporters of Palestine Action stage a protest outside the Royal Court of Justice in London, Tuesday, April 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)
Supporters of Palestine Action stage a protest outside the Royal Court of Justice in London, Tuesday, April 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)

A co-founder of Palestine Action challenged Britain's decision to ban the campaign group as a terrorist organization at the UK Supreme Court on Wednesday, arguing that the move was disproportionate and undermined counter-terrorism laws.

The British government proscribed Palestine Action last year after a series of high-profile incidents mostly targeting defense firms, culminating in a break-in at the Royal Air Force's Brize Norton air base in which two planes were damaged.

Britain's Home Office (interior ministry) argues that the group's escalating actions, causing serious property damage, particularly a 2024 raid targeting Israeli defense firm Elbit Systems, amounted to terrorism and justified the ban.

But the move has drawn criticism from civil liberties groups and prominent supporters including Irish novelist Sally Rooney, whose books can no longer be sold in Britain over her plans to provide royalties to the group.

There have been more than 3,600 arrests linked to support for Palestine Action between proscription in July 2025 and this June, representing more than one-third of all terrorism arrests in Britain since 9/11, according to Home Office statistics.

With the arrest of over 300 people last weekend outside the US embassy in London, plus two dozen or so outside the Supreme Court on Wednesday, the figure is now more than 4,000 – though any resulting charges could be dropped if the ban is overturned.

LAWYER COMPARES GROUP TO SUFFRAGETTES

Founded in 2020, Palestine Action carried out hundreds of "actions", many involving obstructing or occupying premises, or spraying graffiti and breaking windows of businesses they said were linked to providing arms to Israel.

After Israel began bombarding Gaza in response to a deadly attack by Hamas-led fighters in October 2023, Palestine Action's campaign escalated, the Home Office says, with the Elbit raid causing an estimated £1 million ($1.35 million) of damage.

Lawyers representing Huda Ammori, who co-founded Palestine Action, said that, at the time the group was proscribed, government officials had assessed that just three of 385 actions carried out over five years had met the definition of terrorism.

London's High Court initially ruled that the ban was unlawful, but the Court of Appeal overturned that decision in June, rejecting comparisons with historical groups such as the suffragettes who campaigned for women's right to vote.

Ammori's lawyer Raza Husain, however, said on Wednesday that the suffragettes and other groups "used tactics similar or more extreme than Palestine Action", citing the suffragettes' early 20th-century bombing campaign.

The Home Office, though, says the 2024 Elbit attack did involve the use of violence and weapons against security staff and police officers, one of whom suffered a spinal injury when she was hit with a sledgehammer.

The United States in August also designated Palestine Action as a terrorist group. President Donald Trump has described activists who targeted his Turnberry golf resort in Scotland last year as "terrorists".

Arab World

Lebanon Says Israeli Strike Kills One in South

This picture taken by the southern Lebanese vilalge of Zawtar al-Garbiya shows Israeli excavators demolishing homes in the town of Zawtar al-Sharqiya on November 2, 2026. (Photo by ammar ammar / AFP)
This picture taken by the southern Lebanese vilalge of Zawtar al-Garbiya shows Israeli excavators demolishing homes in the town of Zawtar al-Sharqiya on November 2, 2026. (Photo by ammar ammar / AFP)
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Lebanon Says Israeli Strike Kills One in South

This picture taken by the southern Lebanese vilalge of Zawtar al-Garbiya shows Israeli excavators demolishing homes in the town of Zawtar al-Sharqiya on November 2, 2026. (Photo by ammar ammar / AFP)
This picture taken by the southern Lebanese vilalge of Zawtar al-Garbiya shows Israeli excavators demolishing homes in the town of Zawtar al-Sharqiya on November 2, 2026. (Photo by ammar ammar / AFP)

An Israeli strike killed a motorcyclist in Lebanon's south on Wednesday, the Lebanese health ministry said, the first such death since September.

A drone carried out the strike in the Qabrikha area, killing one man and wounding another, the official National News Agency also said.