Tomb of Assad’s father set on fire in Syria hometown: AFP
The tomb of ousted Syrian president Bashar al-Assad’s father Hafez was torched in his home town of Qardaha, accoding to AFP footage taken on Wednesday. AFP said it showed rebel fighters in fatigues and young men watching it burn.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor told AFP the rebels had set fire to the mausoleum, located in the Latakia heartland of Assad’s Alawite community. AFP footage showed parts of the mausoleum ablaze and damaged.
France urges Israel to withdraw forces from Syria buffer zone
Israel must withdraw forces from the buffer zone separating the annexed Golan Heights from Syrian territory, France’s foreign ministry said on Wednesday, according to AFP.
“Any military deployment in the separation zone between Israel and Syria is a violation of the disengagement agreement of 1974,” a foreign ministry spokesperson said.
Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, announced on Sunday he had ordered the army to “seize” the demilitarised zone in the Syrian-controlled part of the Golan Heights after rebels swept Syrian president Bashar al-Assad from power.
“France calls on Israel to withdraw from the zone and to respect Syria’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” the foreign ministry spokesperson said, reports AFP.
The area is patrolled by a UN peacekeeping force known as UNDOF, with the global body warning Israel on Monday that it is in breach of the 50-year-old deal that ended a 1973 war with Syria.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, a UN official in New York told AFP that Israeli forces had occupied seven positions in the buffer zone.
France’s intervention follows condemnations from Saudi Arabia, Iran, Russia and Turkey, as well as a US call for the Israeli incursion to be “temporary”.
The dramatic collapse of the Assad regime after half a century of repression is a critical inflection point for Syria – and for the wider world. It’s a moment of fragile hope for a nation that has endured unimaginable horror.
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