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No Strategic Change as Iran Begins 'Tactical' Withdrawal of its Militias in Syria

A Russian soldier on his armoured vehicle watches Syrian opposition factions during evacuation from Daraa city, on July 15, 2018. (AFP)
A Russian soldier on his armoured vehicle watches Syrian opposition factions during evacuation from Daraa city, on July 15, 2018. (AFP)
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No Strategic Change as Iran Begins 'Tactical' Withdrawal of its Militias in Syria

A Russian soldier on his armoured vehicle watches Syrian opposition factions during evacuation from Daraa city, on July 15, 2018. (AFP)
A Russian soldier on his armoured vehicle watches Syrian opposition factions during evacuation from Daraa city, on July 15, 2018. (AFP)

Iran has intensified in recent days the redeployment of its militias in various regions in Syria, including Damascus and Deir Ezzour, and even moving west towards Iraq.

Officials dismissed these moves as nothing more than "tactical", saying that they don't signify any strategic change for Iran in Syria.

A western official told Asharq Al-Awsat that the tactical withdrawal could have been prompted by several factors, such as the Iranian economic crisis and the new coronavirus pandemic. He said the tensions with the United States playing out in Iraq are another factor. He also noted the reemergence of ISIS in the west, Israel's intensification of its strikes on Syria and the easing of the fighting in some Syrian regions, as well as Russian pressure.

At the same time, some foreign Iranian militias were handing over their positions to Syrian militias that are loyal to Tehran. He compared the situation to what happened in southern Syria after the American-Russian deal that called for the withdrawal of non-Syrian forces to 80 kilometers from the Jordan border and disengagement line in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

Redeployment

The Deir Ezzour 24 network reported on Monday that members of the Fatemiyoun and 313 organizations had moved from Deir Ezzour and al-Mayadeen on Saturday. The former returned to their headquarters in Palmyra, while the other group returned the Sayeda Zainab area south of Damascus.

The network said they were transported in civilian buses without their weapons. The majority of the members were Afghans and they were replaced by local forces.

Sayeda Zainab had recently witnessed tensions between Syrian forces and Iranian factions over the regime's decision to lock down the area over the coronavirus outbreak.

Iranian and Iraqi forces loyal to Damascus are deployed widely in the Deir Ezzour countryside, especially in the Alboukamal and al-Mayadeen areas. They also control the Alboukamal border crossing with Iraq.

Syria's Jisr network reported of a handover operation at Iranian checkpoints and positions in Deir Ezzour under the supervision of Russian military police. The positions were handed over to the Qaterji militias that are affiliated with the Syrian Qaterji group. They are led by Fawwaz al-Bashir, a tribal leader, and affiliates of the Quds brigade that is run by the Russian Wagner group.

The withdrawal began from Deir Ezzour and the forces headed east towards the Iraqi border. The new forces now hold 70 kilometers of territory in Deir Ezzour leading east, while the Iranian militias control 70 kms in other areas, significantly in Alboukamal.

Slain Iranian Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani had overseen the reopening of the crossing, which gives Tehran a land route from Iraq through Syria to the Mediterranean. Soleimani was killed in a US drone strike near Baghdad in January.

Israeli position

On May 5, Israeli officials declared that Iran had started to pull out its forces from Syria after succumbing to frequent Israeli strikes.

Defense Minister Naftali Bennett said last week: "Iran has nothing to do in Syria... (and) we won't stop before they leave Syria." He said Iran was "trying to establish itself on the border with Israel to threaten Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Haifa".

"They have enough problems at home with the coronavirus (and) the collapsing economy," he said about Iran.

Bennett said Iran "used to be an asset for the Syrians... but now it's a burden".

He made his remarks after 14 Iranian and Iraqi fighters were killed in suspected Israeli strikes on Deir Ezzour and on military caches in Aleppo.

In April, three civilians were killed in Israeli strikes near Damascus and a week earlier, nine pro-regime forces were killed in strikes on Palmyra.

Israel had in recent years drawn "red lines" in Syria, including: barring the transfer of rockets to Hezbollah in Lebanon, preventing Iran from setting up permanent military bases and factories for the manufacture of long-range rockets, and standing against the formation of cells in the Golan. It has launched hundreds of raids, none of which were intercepted by Russian air defenses deployed in Syria.

American position

US State Department’s special representative for the Syrian war and the fight against ISIS, James Jeffrey, told Asharq Al-Awsat earlier this month that his country supports "in every possible way", diplomatically and logistically, Israeli raids on Iranian sites in Syria.

He said all foreign forces, including Iranian ones, must withdraw from Syria. Russia was the exception because it has been there before 2011 when the conflict began.

Western officials confirmed to Asharq Al-Awsat that Iran was redeploying its forces in Syria.

Jeffrey said that the Iranians were indeed tactically pulling out from Syria partially because they do not need so many ground forces there. He also cited concern over the economic toll amid the US sanctions against Tehran and the massive financial burden caused the coronavirus outbreak in Iran.

He also added that the moves could just be tactical with no far-reaching significance.

American and regional officials in countries neighboring Syria have speculated that internal and external pressure may have prompted the Iranian moves, but they downplayed their significance, saying they do not amount to strategic change.

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Attacks on Ebola Treatment Centers Are One of Several Problems Affecting Congo’s Outbreak Response

People wait to be attended at the Mongbwalu General Referral Hospital, as aid agencies intensify efforts to contain an Ebola outbreak caused by the Bundibugyo virus in Mongbwalu, Democratic Republic of Congo, May 23, 2026. (Reuters)
People wait to be attended at the Mongbwalu General Referral Hospital, as aid agencies intensify efforts to contain an Ebola outbreak caused by the Bundibugyo virus in Mongbwalu, Democratic Republic of Congo, May 23, 2026. (Reuters)
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Attacks on Ebola Treatment Centers Are One of Several Problems Affecting Congo’s Outbreak Response

People wait to be attended at the Mongbwalu General Referral Hospital, as aid agencies intensify efforts to contain an Ebola outbreak caused by the Bundibugyo virus in Mongbwalu, Democratic Republic of Congo, May 23, 2026. (Reuters)
People wait to be attended at the Mongbwalu General Referral Hospital, as aid agencies intensify efforts to contain an Ebola outbreak caused by the Bundibugyo virus in Mongbwalu, Democratic Republic of Congo, May 23, 2026. (Reuters)

Arson attacks on Ebola treatment centers in eastern Congo show how authorities are faced with a number of serious complications — including a backlash in local communities — as they try to stop an outbreak of an infectious disease that has been declared a global health emergency.

The burning of the centers in two towns at the heart of the outbreak shows the anger in a region beset by violence linked to armed rebel groups, the displacement of a large number of people, the failure of local government and international aid cuts that experts say have stripped health facilities in vulnerable communities.

"A devastating set of emergencies are converging," said the Physicians for Human Rights nonprofit.

Here's a look at the longstanding crises in eastern Congo that have made it home to one of the world's worst humanitarian disasters, and how they are now affecting the response to a rare type of Ebola:

The region has a constant threat of violence

Eastern Congo has seen violence by dozens of separate rebel groups for years, some of them with links to foreign countries or Islamic State.

The Rwanda-backed M23 rebels are in control of parts of the region. While the Congolese government still largely controls the northeastern Ituri Province, which is the epicenter of the Ebola outbreak, that control is tenuous. The Allied Democratic Forces, a Ugandan group linked to ISIS, is one of the dominant rebel groups there and responsible for violent attacks against civilian targets.

Before the outbreak, Doctors Without Borders said in an assessment of the situation in Ituri that the insecurity had worsened recently, causing doctors and nurses to flee and leaving overwhelmed health facilities and "catastrophic" conditions in some parts.

Nearly a million people are displaced in Ituri

Nearly 1 million people in Ituri have been displaced from their homes by conflict, according to the United Nations humanitarian office.

That means this Ebola outbreak is "unfolding in communities already facing insecurity, displacement and fragile health care systems," said Gabriela Arenas, Regional Operations Coordinator at the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

It's a significant concern that the disease might spread to the large displacement camps near the city of Bunia, where the first cases were reported.

Authorities have announced more than 700 suspected Ebola cases and more than 170 suspected deaths, mostly in Ituri. But cases have been reported in two other eastern provinces, North Kivu and South Kivu, where M23 are in control, and also in the neighboring country of Uganda.

That means that part of the outbreak in Congo is being managed by the government and part by rebel authorities, with an array of aid agencies also helping.

Aid cuts were devastating for eastern Congo

Health experts say international aid cuts last year by the United States and other rich nations were devastating for eastern Congo because it has so many problems.

The cuts "reduced the capacity to detect and respond to infectious disease outbreaks," said Thomas McHale, public health director at Physicians for Human Rights. Congo has had more than a dozen previous Ebola outbreaks.

Aid groups fighting this outbreak on the ground say they don't have the equipment they need, like face shields and suits to protect health workers from infection, testing kits, and body bags and other materials needed to safely bury the bodies of victims, which can be highly contagious.

"We have made requests to different partners, but we have not yet really received anything," said Julienne Lusenge, president of Women’s Solidarity for Inclusive Peace and Development, an aid group operating a small hospital near Bunia.

"We only have hand sanitizer and a few masks for the nurses."

The Bundibugyo type of Ebola virus responsible for the outbreak has no approved vaccine or treatment.

Health and aid workers also face anger from local communities

The burning of two treatment centers by people in the Rwampara and Mongbwalu areas — which have the highest case counts — show how a backlash in some communities is further complicating the response.

Colin Thomas-Jensen, director of impact at the Aurora Humanitarian Initiative, said the attacks may reflect the "built-in skepticism and anger" of people in eastern Congo over how the region has been treated, with years of violence from foreign-linked rebel groups and a failure of their government and international peacekeepers to protect them, he said.

Another source of anger has been the strict protocols around the burial of suspected victims of Ebola, which authorities are taking charge of wherever they can to prevent further spread of the disease when families prepare the bodies and people gather for a funeral.

The first burning of an Ebola center in Rwampara was by a group of local youths trying to retrieve the body of a friend who died, according to witnesses and police. The witnesses said the crowd accused the foreign aid group operating there of lying about Ebola.

Authorities in northeastern Congo have now banned funeral wakes and gatherings of more than 50 people in an effort to curb the spread, and armed soldiers and police are guarding some burials carried out by aid workers.

Features

Report: Netanyahu Relegated from Partner to Passenger in Trump's War on Iran

US President Donald Trump, right, meets with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the Oval Office of the White House, in Washington, Feb. 4, 2025. (AFP)
US President Donald Trump, right, meets with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the Oval Office of the White House, in Washington, Feb. 4, 2025. (AFP)
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Report: Netanyahu Relegated from Partner to Passenger in Trump's War on Iran

US President Donald Trump, right, meets with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the Oval Office of the White House, in Washington, Feb. 4, 2025. (AFP)
US President Donald Trump, right, meets with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the Oval Office of the White House, in Washington, Feb. 4, 2025. (AFP)

In the run-up to the February 28 attack on Iran, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel was not only in the Situation Room with President Trump, he was leading the discussion, predicting that a joint US-Israeli strike could very well lead to the demise of the regime in Iran.

“Just a few weeks later, after those sanguine assurances proved inaccurate, the picture was starkly different. Israel was so thoroughly sidelined by the Trump administration, two Israeli defense officials said, that its leaders were cut almost entirely out of the loop on truce talks between the United States and Iran,” said a New York Times report on Saturday.

“Starved of information from their closest ally, the Israelis have been forced to pick up what they can about the back-and-forth between Washington and Tehran through their connections with leaders and diplomats in the region as well as their own surveillance from inside the Iranian regime,” said the two officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.

“The banishment from the cockpit to economy class has potentially significant consequences for Israel, and especially for the prime minister, who faces an uphill re-election battle this year.”

“Netanyahu has long sold himself to Israeli voters as a kind of Trump whisperer,” uniquely capable of enlisting and retaining the president’s support. In a televised speech early in the war, he portrayed himself as the president’s peer, assuring Israelis that he talked to Trump “almost every day,” exchanging ideas and advice, “and deciding together.”

“He had led Israel to war in February with grand visions of achieving a goal he has pursued for decades: stopping Iran’s push for nuclear weapons once and for all. As the war began with a stunning decapitation of much of the government in Tehran, it seemed as though an even more grandiose dream might come true: the toppling of the regime.”

“But many in Trump’s inner circle had always viewed the idea of regime change as absurd. And it wasn’t long before American and Israeli priorities began to diverge more, especially after Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz, sending oil prices soaring and pressuring Trump into agreeing to a ceasefire.”

Far from vanquished, Tehran has behaved as though it won the war, merely by surviving it. Israel, by contrast, has seen its biggest objectives for the war elude its grasp.

Netanyahu set three goals at the start of the war: toppling the regime, destroying Iran’s nuclear program and eliminating its missile program. None have been realized.

Instead of burying Iran’s nuclear ambitions, a recent American proposal called for a 20-year suspension of, or moratorium on, Iranian nuclear activity and that time frame may have gotten smaller in subsequent proposals. That raises the prospect that an eventual deal could resemble the Obama administration’s 2015 nuclear accord, which Netanyahu fought against at the time and Trump exited from three years later.

With the Trump administration excluding Israel from the negotiations, Iran’s arsenal of ballistic missiles may have been left off the table, as far as Israeli officials know. In that respect, any deal would fail to improve on the 2015 agreement, which Netanyahu assailed in part because it did not address Iran’s missiles.

It would also be a dismaying setback for the Israeli public, for whom life largely ground to a halt as the nation was bombarded by Iranian missiles in March and April.

There are other concerns for Israel about the possible contours of a US-Iran agreement, including a lifting of economic sanctions against Tehran. Doing so could amount to an economic lifeline, flooding Iran with billions of dollars that it could then use to rearm and to help its proxy forces, like Hezbollah, replenish their own arsenals with weapons to use against Israel.

While little is certain yet about the shape of an eventual deal — and any agreement could still be postponed by a renewal of fighting — what seems clear is that Israel’s partnership with the United States has come at a steep price. A country that for generations prided itself on “defending ourselves by ourselves,” and whose leaders exasperated a succession of American presidents with their hardheaded recalcitrance, is now making little secret of its need, and willingness, to submit to Trump’s demands.

As Defense Minister Israel Katz said on April 23, as Trump threatened to resume the war and bomb Iran back to the “Stone Age”: “We are only waiting for the green light from the US.”

“That admission was a humbling climbdown from the heady first days of the war, when the two countries achieved air supremacy and were so confident of success that they urged the Iranian people to topple the regime and secure their future,” said the NYT.

Within two weeks, it became clear that the war would not produce instant victory, as Trump had hoped. The White House, and some Israeli leaders, put aside their hopes for regime change, and Trump turned his attention toward ending the fighting.

“He had viewed Netanyahu as a war ally, but not as a close partner when it came to negotiating with the Iranians,” American officials familiar with his thinking said; in fact, he considered Netanyahu someone “who needed to be restrained when it comes to resolving conflicts.”

Israel soon found itself demoted from “equal partner” to something more akin to a “subcontractor” to the US military.

Israel would often clear plans with the United States, only to have the Trump administration throw it under the bus after those plans were executed, such as when Israel struck the South Pars natural gas field and oil facilities along the Gulf in southern Iran.

Trump even pressured Israel to bring a premature halt to its campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon within days after the ceasefire on April 8, forcing Israel to accept restraints on its fighting with a hostile adversary right on its border.

“The sidelining is particularly hard to take for some Israeli officials, who, speaking on condition of anonymity, noted that the country willingly shouldered some of the war’s more controversial assignments.”

For Netanyahu, it has meant repeatedly recalibrating his rhetoric, and even adjusting his description of Israel’s war objectives, in response to Trump’s frequent vacillations.

After initially telling his citizens that Israel’s goals were to “remove” the existential threats of an Iranian nuclear weapon and of its ballistic missile arsenal, by March 12 Netanyahu was articulating a new idea. This one downplayed the fact that those threats had not been removed, and instead exalted Israel’s close partnership with the United States.

“Threats come and threats go, but when we become a regional power, and in certain fields a global power, we have the strength to push dangers away from us and secure our future,” he said. What gave Israel such newfound strength in the eyes of its adversaries, Netanyahu asserted, was his alliance with Trump — “an alliance like no other.”

 

*David M. Halbfinger and Ronen Bergman for The New York Times

Features

A Grieving Father Buries His 6-Year-Old After a Land Mine Kills 3 Children in Syria’s Idlib

Idris Al-Ridah, center, weeps as he prays during the funeral of his son Mohammed, who was killed in an explosion caused by war remnants while playing with other children in the village of Abu Habbah in eastern Idlib countryside, in Abu Habbah, Syria, Thursday, May 21, 2026. (AP)
Idris Al-Ridah, center, weeps as he prays during the funeral of his son Mohammed, who was killed in an explosion caused by war remnants while playing with other children in the village of Abu Habbah in eastern Idlib countryside, in Abu Habbah, Syria, Thursday, May 21, 2026. (AP)
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A Grieving Father Buries His 6-Year-Old After a Land Mine Kills 3 Children in Syria’s Idlib

Idris Al-Ridah, center, weeps as he prays during the funeral of his son Mohammed, who was killed in an explosion caused by war remnants while playing with other children in the village of Abu Habbah in eastern Idlib countryside, in Abu Habbah, Syria, Thursday, May 21, 2026. (AP)
Idris Al-Ridah, center, weeps as he prays during the funeral of his son Mohammed, who was killed in an explosion caused by war remnants while playing with other children in the village of Abu Habbah in eastern Idlib countryside, in Abu Habbah, Syria, Thursday, May 21, 2026. (AP)

Idris al-Ridah wept as he carried the lifeless body of his 6-year-old son Amir, wrapped in a yellow and brown blanket, in northwest Syria.

The father collapsed to the ground as he laid his son to rest, his small body lowered into a grave next to two other young children who were siblings, Aya al-Fankih, 4, and Rayan al-Fankih, 6.

The three children were killed on Thursday in the village of Abu Habbah, in the countryside in the northwestern province of Idlib, when a land mine left behind from Syria's war exploded while they were playing near a well.

The deaths are the latest reminder of the dangers posed by unexploded war remnants scattered across the country years after the conflict began.

Mines and booby traps have killed and maimed hundreds of Syrians since Syria’s conflict began in March 2011, leaving about half a million people dead.

The Syrian Civil Defense said four other children who were near the well were also wounded in the blast.

"We heard a very loud explosion next to our house,” one resident, Mahmoud al-Aleiwi. He added that “when we got to the location there were a number of children’s bodies thrown around the well.”

He said one of the children was thrown 300 meters (984 feet) away by the explosion and was found on the roof of a house.

At a nearby hospital, wounded children cried as family members tended to them. One child had shrapnel wounds across his face and body, his legs wrapped in bandages. Another lay in bed with blood visible through bandages wrapped around his head.

Ten-year-old Ibrahim al-Suwadi was injured last month in a separate explosion caused by unexploded ordnance inside a damaged school in the town of al-Habit in Idlib’s southern countryside.

Sitting beside his father inside their home, al-Suwadi described how he was playing with his friends at the school when they went inside a room and found the mine.

“Two brothers picked it up and took it to the bathroom,” the boy said. “We thought it was an exploded mine so we started throwing rocks at it. All of a sudden, an older boy grabbed my hand and we ran, the mine exploded and I lost consciousness then I don’t remember anything.”

His father said the family had fled their village in 2013 during fighting and spent years living in displacement camps before returning after the fall of Bashar Assad’s government in December 2024.

Humanitarian organizations say unexploded ordnance remains one of the deadliest legacies of Syria’s war.

“Syria has ranked among the top contaminated countries around the world over the past years,” said Jakub Valenta, head of humanitarian disarmament and peace building for the Danish Refugee Council in Syria. He added that according to the data from the United Nations, around 14.3 million people are in danger of explosive ordnance in the country.

Valenta said the explosive hazards include anti-personnel mines, anti-tank mines and other unexploded devices left behind in residential and agricultural areas.

“We’re estimating that around 1,200 people and probably more have been affected by explosive ordnance accidents directly,” he said. “Out of those 1,200 people there were around 740 fatal casualties. The vast majority of these people are men and children.”

According to the Danish Refugee Council, around 60% of contaminated areas in Syria are agricultural lands, complicating efforts by displaced families to return home and rebuild livelihoods.

In Damascus’ southern suburb of Kisweh earlier this month, Syrian trainees working with Danish Refugee Council teams carefully removed and destroyed unexploded ordnance during training exercises aimed at expanding local demining capacity.

The organization says it has recruited and trained new Syrian explosive ordnance disposal teams to help clear contaminated areas and educate communities about the risks.

“The number of the casualties is among the highest worldwide in terms of explosive accidents and victims,” Valenta said.

“These people suffer lifelong injuries, physical like losing a limb or their vision and suffer mental health problems," he said. “These people also lose their jobs and livelihoods."