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Syria Requests to Join Anti-chemical Weapons Partnership

The logo of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) is seen during a special session in the Hague, Netherlands June 26, 2018. REUTERS/Yves Herman Purchase Licensing Rights
The logo of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) is seen during a special session in the Hague, Netherlands June 26, 2018. REUTERS/Yves Herman Purchase Licensing Rights
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Syria Requests to Join Anti-chemical Weapons Partnership

The logo of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) is seen during a special session in the Hague, Netherlands June 26, 2018. REUTERS/Yves Herman Purchase Licensing Rights
The logo of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) is seen during a special session in the Hague, Netherlands June 26, 2018. REUTERS/Yves Herman Purchase Licensing Rights

Syria on Friday said it had requested to join the International Partnership Against Impunity for the Use of Chemical Weapons on the anniversary of a 2013 chemical attack on a suburb of the capital Damascus.

In a joint statement with France commemorating the attack during former leader Bashar al-Assad's rule on opposition-held areas, Syria announced its bid to join the partnership of dozens of countries, launched by Paris in January 2018.

France welcomed the step as "a clear demonstration of Syria's commitment to strengthening accountability and justice and combating impunity" following its more than decade-long civil war.

Damascus and Paris also said they "commemorate the victims, extend their deepest sympathies and solidarity to their families, and reaffirm their joint commitment to supporting efforts to uncover the truth, ensure justice, and hold those responsible for these crimes accountable".

In August 2013, the Syrian army under Assad was accused of using chemical weapons to target areas then under the opposition’s control.

According to US intelligence and rights groups, more than 1,400 men, women and children died as a result.

With Syria at the height of its civil war, the Assad government denied responsibility, but agreed to hand over its chemical arsenal in order to avert US strikes.

Assad went on to remain in power for more than a decade, only to be ousted in 2024 by opposition forces, headed by now President Ahmed al-Sharaa.

Survivors of the attacks, including medics, at the time risked their lives by posting dozens of videos online, and spoke to journalists including AFP reporters about the horror they had witnessed.

The footage showed dozens of corpses, many of them children, outstretched on the ground.

Other images showed unconscious children, people foaming at the mouth and doctors trying to help them breathe.

The scenes provoked revulsion and condemnation around the globe.

- 'Painful chapter' -

A United Nations report later said there was clear evidence sarin gas had been used.

Syria agreed to join the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) and disclose and hand over its toxic stockpile under Russian and US pressure, averting the threat of strikes by Washington and its allies.

But that was not the last of the chemical attacks: the OPCW went on to blame Assad's forces for others later in the civil war.

Marking 13 years since the attack, Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani called it "one of the most painful chapters in Syria's history".

"Tomorrow, the Syrian Arab Republic begins a new phase in dealing with the legacy of these weapons. We have initiated the necessary technical and logistical procedures for their disposal, in cooperation with our international partners," he added, also vowing to pursue those involved in the attack.

Several Syrian officers linked to the attack have been arrested since Assad's fall.

Syria's civil war began in 2011, with a brutal crackdown on dissent that yielded an armed rebellion. More than half a million people ended up being killed, with millions more forced into exile.

The OPCW reinstated Syria last month, five years after taking the unprecedented step of stripping it of its voting rights.

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Arab World

Houthis Tighten Security Grip in Ibb

 A Houthi rally in Sanaa called by the group’s leader in support of land and maritime attacks (AFP) 
 A Houthi rally in Sanaa called by the group’s leader in support of land and maritime attacks (AFP) 
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Houthis Tighten Security Grip in Ibb

 A Houthi rally in Sanaa called by the group’s leader in support of land and maritime attacks (AFP) 
 A Houthi rally in Sanaa called by the group’s leader in support of land and maritime attacks (AFP) 

The Iran-backed Houthi group has tightened its security grip on Yemen’s Ibb governorate amid rising tensions and clashes along surrounding front lines, deploying elite units to areas near battlefronts with Taiz, Hodeidah and Al-Dhale.

Local sources told Asharq Al-Awsat that the group had intensified its security presence in Ibb city and areas near the front lines in the west of the governorate, reinforced routes leading to the fronts and imposed tighter surveillance on residents’ movements and communications.

Ibb is strategically important because it lies along supply routes linking Houthi-controlled areas with fronts in Hodeidah, Taiz and Al-Dhale, about 192 kilometers (119 miles) south of Sanaa.

The Houthis have moved the headquarters of the military command covering Ibb, Al-Dhale and Taiz to Damt, east of Ibb, and deployed two elite units known as the Al-Samad Brigades near the front lines, the sources said.

The group sent fighters recruited from Ibb to frontline positions while keeping the two Al-Samad units behind the front to monitor the forces and prevent local fighters from fleeing or retreating during clashes.

According to the sources, the deployment reflects distrust of fighters recruited from the governorate as the Houthis tighten security in cities and towns and along roads leading to combat zones.

Operations Hub

The Houthis have turned eastern Ibb into a center for managing military operations on surrounding fronts while redeploying units near the frontlines.

The moves come amid mounting tensions on several fronts and as the group strengthens its security grip over Ibb, one of its main recruitment and supply areas.

They coincide with the first anniversary of a sweeping arrest campaign in Ibb that targeted more than 115 educators, academics, doctors and engineers, according to local sources.

The campaign lasted more than three months, from late May to October last year. Fourteen detainees have since been released at different times, the latest about a week ago, while the others remain in custody.

Several people wanted by the Houthis remain unable to leave the governorate for government-controlled areas, while around 260 families have managed to flee Houthi-held territory and reach areas under government control.

Siham al-Abab, daughter of educator Sadiq al-Abab, meanwhile revealed that her father’s health had deteriorated after more than a year in Houthi detention, with his family unable to visit him or obtain information about his condition. Her father called several days ago and sounded clearly tired, she said, adding that the family did not know what was wrong with him and could neither see nor check on him.

She added that the call had a profound psychological impact and that her father’s voice remained with her afterward. She had previously described her family’s suffering in his absence, saying he had left behind a small family in need of support while remaining imprisoned without the family knowing what charges he faced.

The Houthis detained Sadiq al-Abab during a sweeping arrest campaign targeting hundreds of people in Ibb, Taiz and Al-Bayda, including doctors, teachers, lawyers, employees and community figures, according to local sources.

Detention Without Legal Process

Zakaria al-Jaberi said his father has been forcibly detained by the Houthis at the Political Security headquarters in Ibb since June 12, 2025.

The family has communicated with him only three times. Its sole permitted visit came more than 11 months after his detention, before further visits were barred.

Al-Jaberi noted that the Houthis had allowed only limited phone calls, leaving the family unaware of his detention conditions or physical and psychological state despite authorities knowing he has health problems.

The family has approached numerous officials and individuals seeking answers or assistance, but was often told that those responsible knew nothing about the case and that the authority handling it was in Sanaa.

Al-Jabri questioned who had ordered his father’s detention, why he had not been referred to prosecutors and why the family had not been informed of the charges or any legal process.

The family does not know “who has the authority to make the decision or who can end this detention,” he underlined, adding that the prolonged detention had taken a heavy psychological and social toll. He said the case reflected the absence of any clear official authority the family could turn to despite repeated appeals to government bodies, civil society organizations and local dignitaries.

 

 

 

Arab World

Sudan Farms Lie Barren as El Nino Leaves Nile Banks Dry

A photograph shows the exposed riverbed of the Blue Nile in Khartoum on July 27, 2026. (AFP)
A photograph shows the exposed riverbed of the Blue Nile in Khartoum on July 27, 2026. (AFP)
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Sudan Farms Lie Barren as El Nino Leaves Nile Banks Dry

A photograph shows the exposed riverbed of the Blue Nile in Khartoum on July 27, 2026. (AFP)
A photograph shows the exposed riverbed of the Blue Nile in Khartoum on July 27, 2026. (AFP)

Along the bone-dry riverbanks of the Nile in Sudan, farmers struggle to pull water to their crops. Others gather to pray for rainfall over cracked earth.

Across the country, farmland that could feed the world's largest hunger crisis many times over lies fallow, as weary farmers once again find themselves in the crosshairs of faraway destruction.

First came war between the country's army and rival paramilitaries, which since April 2023 has killed more than 200,000 people and pushed nearly 20 million into crisis levels of hunger.

Then a more distant conflict, between Iran and the United States, crippled fuel and fertilizer supply through the Strait of Hormuz, causing costs to soar.

And now the powerful El Nino climate pattern strengthening in the Pacific Ocean, which impacts winds and rains across the world, has delayed crucial rains and led water levels in the life-giving Nile to drop precipitously.

Just south of the capital Khartoum, farmer Al-Tigani Fadlallah points to an island that shouldn't be there.

"The water usually covers it by July, but you can see it even now," he told AFP this month, seeing in the sunbaked sandbank a bad omen for his parched crops.

Through the length of Sudan, from the northern fields near Egypt, along the Nile river to the Ethiopian border, farmers told AFP reporters the water they need is not rising from the riverbanks nor falling from the sky.

The UN's food and agriculture organization says the season "is unfolding under heightened climate risk, driven by El Nino conditions" including delayed and below average rains, and long and frequent dry spells.

Farmers say it is one of the hardest seasons in recent memory, but climate research shows it will not be the last.

- Pray for rain -

Climate and hydrology scientist Elfatih Eltahir, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has studied the link between El Nino and the Nile for thirty years.

His research has shown El Nino is closely associated with low Nile flow and, when it begins in late spring, as it did this year, brings a high probability of drought in southeastern Sudan and northwestern Ethiopia, where the Blue Nile originates.

Water levels at the reservoir behind Ethiopia's massive Grand Renaissance dam on the Blue Nile, which contributes the majority of water feeding the Nile river, was six meters lower this July compared to the same month last year, according to data from Germany's University of Tubingen.

A Sudanese farmer ploughs agricultural land in Gedaref State, eastern Sudan, on July 18, 2026. (AFP)

But Eltahir warns "more transparency and cooperation" are also needed between Ethiopia, Egypt and Sudan over Addis Ababa's management of the reservoir, especially as climate change brings more extreme floods and droughts.

This summer, the Blue Nile basin has already seen as little as half of its usual rainfall, according to UC Santa Barbara's Climate Hazards Center, and regional forecasts predict below average rainfall for the rest of the rainy season.

Farmers in Gedaref state on the Ethiopian border, where the bulk of Sudan's staple crops such as sorghum and sesame are planted, are already feeling it.

When August rolled in and their usually-verdant fields were still a dull brown, frustrated farmers gathered behind local imams for rain-invoking prayers.

"We need these rains for our crops and our livestock, and they're late," local farmer Abdelmajid Hussein told AFP after a prayer.

Agriculture minister Ismat Qurashi told AFP farmers are being told to choose drought-resistant crops and to delay planting.

Moussa Yaacoub, 75, has planted sesame for decades, including three wartime growing seasons each harder than the last.

Now, standing sentinel over the cracked earth, he wonders if he will make it through the next, with his land now costing him "four times as much to plant".

- Can't catch a break -

Downstream, in Sudan's other breadbasket state Al-Jazira, Hassan Ahmed stares out at the farm that has been in his family for 100 years.

When Ahmed returned to it last year, after the army recaptured Al-Jazira from the Rapid Support Forces, he found it had been ransacked by looting paramilitaries, and his trees stood wilting in the sun.

He and his sons got to work bringing it back to life, but this year have struggled anew.

"I'm 63 and I have never seen the Nile this low in August," he told AFP. "By now we should have taken our water pump out because the flood had drenched the soil several meters in."

Buffeted by a perfect storm -- low water, soaring costs and a crippled market -- many farmers have abandoned their lands, at a time when 65 percent of Sudan's vast arable land is already out of commission.

Some farmers, hopeful at the start of the season, "planted their crops but then left them to die because it just wasn't worth the harvest," young farmer Mohamed al-Tijani told AFP near Khartoum.

Sudan imports all of its fuel and most of its fertilizer, costs for which have multiplied by up to five this year as a result of war in the Middle East.

Veteran farmer Ahmed Othman is one of many who know he won't break even in the market, already devastated with most of the country out of work.

"But at least I can say I'm working at all," he told AFP, back bent from decades of toiling in the fields.

Arab World

Arab Parliament Speaker Condemns Israeli Settlement Plan in West Bank

Arab Parliament logo
Arab Parliament logo
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Arab Parliament Speaker Condemns Israeli Settlement Plan in West Bank

Arab Parliament logo
Arab Parliament logo

Arab Parliament Speaker Mohammed Al-Yamahi strongly condemned Israel’s plan to implement the expansionist settlement project in the E1 area of the occupied West Bank and rejected the remarks made by Israel’s security minister calling for the killing of dozens of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, the Saudi Press Agency reported on Friday.

He stressed that proceeding with the project despite international warnings defies international law and relevant international resolutions.

He called on the international community, the UN Security Council, parliaments, and international organizations to take concrete measures to halt settlement and annexation activities, hold those responsible for incitement accountable, and work toward achieving peace, which begins with ending the occupation and enabling the Palestinian people to exercise their legitimate rights.