Deadly violence in Syria could reshape domestic and regional alliances.

The Druze and other minorities increasingly mistrust a central government run by a man once affiliated with al-Qaida, even though he has pledged to protect Syria’s diverse ethnic and religious groups since helping to oust Bashar Assad after a nearly 14-year civil war.

This sectarian turbulence within Syria threatens to shake-up postwar alliances and exacerbate regional tensions, experts say. It could also potentially draw the country closer to Turkey and away from Israel, with whom it has been quietly engaging since Assad’s fall, with encouragement from the Trump administration.
The spark for this week’s violence

Deadly clashes broke out last Sunday in the southern province of Sweida between Druze militias and local Sunni Muslim Bedouin tribes.

Government forces intervened, ostensibly to restore order, but ended up trying to wrest control of Sweida from the Druze factions that control it.

Hundreds were killed in the fighting, and some government fighters allegedly executed Druze civilians and burned and looted their houses.

Driven by concerns about security and domestic politics, Israel intervened on behalf of the Druze, who are seen as a loyal minority within Israel and often serve in its military.

Israeli warplanes bombarded the Syrian defence Ministry’s headquarters in central Damascus and struck near the presidential palace. It was an apparent warning to the country’s interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa, who led Islamist rebels that overthrew Assad but has since preached coexistence and sought ties with with the West. The Israeli army also struck government forces in Sweida.

By Wednesday, a truce had been mediated that allowed Druze factions and clerics to maintain security in Sweida as government forces pulled out — although fighting persisted between Druze and Bedouin forces. Early Saturday, U.S. envoy to Syria Tom Barrack announced a separate ceasefire had been brokered between Israel and Syria.
Worsening ties with minorities

This past week’s clashes aren’t the first instance of sectarian violence in Syria since the fall of Assad.

A few months after Assad fled and after a transition that initially was mostly peaceful, government forces and pro-Assad armed groups clashed on Syria’s coast. That spurred sectarian attacks that killed hundreds of civilians from the Alawite religious minority to which Assad belongs.

Those killings left other minority groups, including the Druze in the south, and the Kurds in the northeast – who have a de facto autonomous area under their control -- wary that the country’s new leaders would protect them.

Violence is only part of the problem. Syria’s minority groups only have been given what many see as token representation in the interim government, according to Bassam Alahmad, executive director of Syrians for Truth and Justice, a civil society organization.

“It’s a transitional period. We should have a dialogue, and they (the minorities) should feel that they’re a real part of the state,” Alahmad said. Instead, with the incursion into Sweida, the new authorities have sent a message that they would use military force to “control every part of Syria,” he said.

“Bashar Assad tried this way,” and it failed, he added.

On the other hand, supporters of the new government fear that its decision to back down in Sweida could signal to other minorities that it’s OK to demand their own autonomous regions, which would fragment and weaken the country.

If Damascus cedes security control of Sweida to the Druze, “of course everyone else is going to demand the same thing,” said Abdel Hakim al-Masri, a former official in the Turkish-backed regional government in Syria’s northwest before Assad’s fall.

“This is what we are afraid of,” he said.
A rapprochement with Israel may be derailed

Before this week’s flare-up between Israel and Syria, and despite a long history of suspicion between the two countries, the Trump administration had been pushing their leaders to post-Assad to work toward normalizing relations – meaning that Syria would formally recognize Israel and establish diplomatic relations, or at least enter into some limited agreement on security matters.

Syrian officials have acknowledged holding indirect talks with Israel, but defusing decades of tension was never going to be easy.

After Assad’s fall, Israeli forces seized control of a UN-patrolled buffer zone in Syria and carried out airstrikes on military sites in what Israeli officials said was a move to create a demilitarized zone south of Damascus.

Dareen Khalifa, a senior adviser at the International Crisis Group, said she believes Israel could have gotten the same result through negotiations.

But now it’s unlikely Syria will be willing to continue down the path of reconciliation with Israel, at least in the short term, she said.

“I don’t know how the Israelis could expect to drop bombs on Damascus and still have some kind of normal dialogue with the Syrians,” said Colin Clarke, a senior research fellow at the Soufan Center, a New York-based organization that focuses on global security challenges. “Just like Netanyahu, al-Sharaa’s got a domestic constituency that he’s got to answer to.”

Yet even after the events of this past week, the Trump administration still seems to have hope of keeping the talks alive. U.S. officials are “engaging diplomatically with Israel and Syria at the highest levels, both to address the present crisis and reach a lasting agreement between two sovereign states,” says Dorothy Shea, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

Shea said during a UN Security Council emergency meeting on Thursday that “the United States did not support recent Israeli strikes.”
Syria could be drawn closer to Turkey

During Syria’s civil war, the U.S. was allied with Kurdish forces in the country’s northeast in their fight against the Islamic State militant group.

But since Assad’s fall, the U.S. has begun gradually pulling its forces out of Syria and has encouraged the Kurds to integrate their forces with those of the new authorities in Damascus.

To that end, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces agreed in March to a landmark deal that would merge them with the national army. But implementation has stalled. A major sticking point has been whether the SDF would remain as a cohesive unit in the new army or be dissolved completely.

Khalifa said the conflict in Sweida is “definitely going to complicate” those talks.

Not only are the Kurds mistrustful of government forces after their attacks on Alawite and Druze minorities, but now they also view them as looking weak. “Let’s be frank, the government came out of this looking defeated,” Khalifa said.

It’s possible that the Kurds, like the Druze, might look to Israel for support, but Turkey is unlikely to stand by idly if they do, Khalifa said.

The Turkish government considers the SDF a terrorist organization because of its association with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, which has waged a long-running insurgency in Turkey. For that reason, it has long wanted to curtail the group’s influence just across its border.

Israel’s latest military foray in Syria could give its new leaders an incentive to draw closer to Ankara, according to Clarke. That could include pursuing a defence pact that has been discussed but not implemented.

Turkish defence ministry officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity according to procedures, said that if requested, Ankara is ready to assist Syria in strengthening its defence capabilities.

Abby Sewell, The Associated Press

#Fashion startup founder charged with $300 million fraud.

Christine Hunsicker, 48, of Lafayette, N.J., was charged with six counts, including fraud, aggravated identity theft and false statement charges in the indictment in Manhattan federal court.

U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton said in a release that Hunsicker forged documents, fabricated audits and made material misrepresentations about her company’s financial condition to defraud investors in CaaStle Inc. and P180.

The indictment said Hunsicker, once portrayed as an on-the-rise fashion entrepreneur, portrayed CaaStle as a high-growth, private company with substantial cash on hand when she knew it faced significant financial distress.

In a statement, defence lawyers Michael Levy and Anna Skotko said prosecutors “have chosen to present to the public an incomplete and very distorted picture in today’s indictment,” despite Hunsicker’s efforts to be “fully cooperative and transparent” with prosecutors and the Securities and Exchange Commission.

“There is much more to this story, and we look forward to telling it,” they said.

Hunsicker did not comment as she left the courthouse with Skotko after entering the not-guilty plea and agreeing to the rules of her $1 million bail, which included not having any contact with former or current investors or employees.

According to the indictment, Hunsicker continued her fraudulent scheme even after the CaaStle board of directors removed her and prohibited her from soliciting investments or taking other actions on the company’s behalf.

She “persisted in her scheme” even after law enforcement agents confronted her over the fraud, the indictment said.

Before the fraud allegations emerged, Hunsicker seemed to be a rising star in the fashion world after she was named to Crain’s New York Business “40 under 40” lists, was selected as one of Inc.’s “Most Impressive Women Entrepreneurs” and was recognized by the National Retail Federation as someone shaping the future of retail, the indictment noted.

At a time when the business was in financial distress with limited cash available and significant expenses, CaaStle was valued by Hunsicker at $1.4 billion, the indictment said.

Hunsicker was lying to investors in February 2019 and continued to do so through this March, prosecutors alleged.

They said she fed investors falsely inflated income statements, fake audited financial statements, fictitious bank account records and sham corporate records.

She allegedly told one investor in August 2023 that CaaStle reported an operating profit of nearly $24 million in the second quarter of 2023 when its operating profit that quarter was actually less than $30,000.

The indictment alleged that she carried out the majority of the fraud by bilking CaaStle investors of $275 million before forming P180 last year to infuse CaaStle with cash before its investors could discover her fraud.

Through misrepresentations and omissions, she cheated P180 investors out of about $30 million, the indictment said.

It said CaaStle filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy last month, leaving hundreds of investors holding now-worthless CaaStle shares. Hunsicker was forced to resign from CaaStle’s board in December and formally resigned as chief executive in March.

In a related civil filing, the SEC said Hunsicker’s “fake financials” supported her narrative that CaaStle was nearing an initial public offering or sale in late 2022 as it enjoyed rapid and steady revenue growth after launching a new monetization model called “Clothing-as-a-Service.”

“In reality, CaaStle’s revenues were shrinking, its losses were increasing, and the company was never profitable,” the lawsuit said. “Not a single existing or prospective CaaStle investor received accurate monthly, quarterly, or annual CaaStle financial statements from Hunsicker.”

Larry Neumeister, The Associated Press

How Vancouver’s urban #orcas create connections and community among followers.

But after encounters with whales in the urban waters of Vancouver the photographer now feels a deep sense of connection, and he’s found community with fellow enthusiasts.

“It’s a switch from that feeling that I used to have before to, I don’t know, let’s say (a) warmer feeling,” says Jaksuwong, who moved to the city from Thailand about two years ago.

He grows emotional as he describes the new-found sense of expectation when he gazes at the ocean.

“You know there’s something there that makes you feel OK.”

Jaksuwong is among a growing community of whale fans who track and share the surging number of sightings around Vancouver.

Experts say the return of orcas, humpbacks and other marine mammals has been decades in the making, following the end of commercial whaling in British Columbia in the late 1960s along with the wind-down of the large-scale culling of seals and sea lions, the primary food for certain killer whales.

Andrew Trites, who leads the Marine Mammal Research Unit at the University of B.C., says whales are the “ambassadors of the Salish Sea,” and their recovery is an opportunity to boost public awareness and encourage protections for their habitat.

“People care about what they see, and unfortunately, they see very little below the water’s surface to understand the richness of life and the need to maintain a healthy ocean,” says Trites, a professor in the school’s zoology department.

Jaksuwong once saw a whale from a distance during a tour off Vancouver Island. But he says he never expected to see whales from shore in the city.

“Now I’m obsessed with orcas,” he says, laughing. “It’s my thing now.”

In one encounter last month, he raced to catch up with a pod of whales reported to be passing Stanley Park. He caught a bus, then ran to the middle of Lions Gate Bridge that overlooks the city’s Burrard Inlet in hopes of an overhead shot of the whales using his telephoto lens.

“I’ve never run that fast before (with) the gear and stuff, right?” he recalled in an interview. “If it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be. That’s what I thought.”

He was greeted with scenes worthy of a wildlife documentary — the whales were hunting a seal. Several of his photos show blood in the water roiling around the orcas.

“I’ve never seen this ever in my life. I feel so lucky, to be honest, to see that here, in nature,” he says.

Jaksuwong was “over the moon” to capture a photo of a young orca leaping out of the water, a moment he had been waiting for, he says.

He shared the photos with the Facebook group “Howe Sound and Sea to Sky wildlife sightings,” devoted to tracking and sharing encounters with orcas and other wildlife in the region. It has almost 27,000 members.

That day, June 14, the orcas had a bigger audience than usual — a crowd was gathered at Locarno Beach to watch a triathlon, with the whales stealing attention from the finish of the men’s event.

Jaksuwong joined the Facebook group in May, when a grey whale known as Little Patch spent several weeks feeding in Vancouver’s waters.

Since then, he’s become friends with fellow enthusiasts.

“We share our interests and we kind of like text each other, ‘whale here, whale there,’ and then we go see them together,” he says.

Erin Gless, executive director of the Pacific Whale Watch Association, which represents 30 companies in both B.C. and Washington state, says there has been an “exponential increase” in sightings around Vancouver in recent years.

It has given whale-watching operators the opportunity to share stories about the whales as individuals, fostering a sense of personal connection, she says.

“We’re going to tell you that this humpback is nicknamed Malachite, and he was born in 2021, and he goes to Mexico in the winter,” Gless says.

“That’s what we’re really trying to do is put a much more personalized spin on these animals, so that they’re not anonymous.”

Trites says he came to B.C. around 1980 and “never thought” he’d see a humpback in local waters in his lifetime, after whaling decimated the population.

“It took the humpback whales a century to find their way back here again,” he says.

There were no other marine mammals to be seen regularly either at Vancouver’s Spanish Banks beach or the Stanley Park seawall, he says, after the culling of seals and sea lions in the name of safeguarding fisheries.

The end of the cull around 1970 laid the groundwork for the long-term recovery of Bigg’s killer whales, also known as transient orcas, which hunt mammals.

“So, we go basically from looking at what I would say was a relatively empty ocean in terms of marine mammals to one now that literally any day I can go and find a whale or a seal or a sea lion or a dolphin or a porpoise,” Trites says.

The seal population has been stable for some years, kept in check by the orcas; but they have spread out to areas where people are more likely to see them, he adds.

“To me, it’s a sign that if people just got out of the way, then Mother Nature can heal itself,” he says.

There is an exception, however, in the story of recovery, Trites says.

Bigg’s orcas differ from the southern resident killer whales that frequent the Salish Sea in the summer months. That population is endangered and at risk of extinction due in large part to declining numbers of their preferred prey, chinook salmon.

In Vancouver’s busy waters, whales are also at risk of ship strikes, Trites says, while noise from vessels disrupts their ability to feed and communicate.

Gless says people are lucky to be part of the story of the whales’ return, but “we need to keep it that way.”

“We can’t be like, ‘Oh, they’re recovered enough, so now let’s go ahead and build this new pipeline or increase shipping traffic.’ Those are all things that still concern us.”

Jaksuwong, meanwhile, continues to watch for whales, monitoring sightings and making his way to the seawall as often as he can, alerting others along the way.

“You see the look on their face when they see the orcas,” he says. “It’s rewarding for me too.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 18, 2025.

Brenna Owen, The #Canadian Press

An #Israeli strike on Gaza’s only Catholic church killed three people on Thursday, the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem said, as Israel said it “never targets” religious sites and regretted any harm to civilians.

How an email error sparked a secret scramble to bring thousands of Afghans to Britain,

Key information was also kept from the Afghans themselves, who had assisted U.K. forces and whose personal details had been disclosed in a huge data leak. Many plan to sue the British government for putting them in danger from the Taliban. Some are left in Afghanistan as the current British government says the resettlement program will end.

Here’s what happened in an extraordinary chain of events.
An email error with huge consequences

The saga was triggered by the chaotic #Western exit from #Afghanistan in August 2021 as the Taliban, ousted from power 20 years earlier, swept across the country, seized Kabul and reimposed their strict version of Islamic law.

Afghans who had worked with Western forces — as fixers, translators and in other roles — or who had served in the internationally backed Afghan army were at risk of retribution. Britain set up a program, known as the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy, or #ARAP, to bring some to the U.K.

In February 2022, a defense official emailed a spreadsheet containing the personal information of nearly 19,000 ARAP applicants to someone outside the Ministry of Defense. The government says the individual thought they were sending a list of about 150 names, not the whole set.

The British government only became aware of the leak when a portion of the data was posted on Facebook 18 months later by someone who threatened to publish the whole list.
The government sought secrecy

The leak sparked alarm among British officials who feared as many as 100,000 people were in danger when family numbers of the named individuals were added. The then-Conservative government sought a court order barring publication of the list.

A judge granted a sweeping order known as a super injunction, which barred anyone from revealing not only information about the leak but the existence of the injunction itself.

Super injunctions are relatively rare and their use is controversial. Most of the handful of cases in which they have come to light involved celebrities trying to prevent disclosures about their private lives. This is the first known case of a super injunction being granted to the government.

Former Defense Secretary Ben Wallace said Wednesday that he sought the legal order to gain “time and space to deal with this leak, find out whether the Taliban had it” and protect those at risk.

Wallace said he asked for an ordinary injunction — not a super injunction — for a period of four months. The gag order remained in place for almost two years.
A secret program sparked a legal battle

The government began bringing to Britain the Afghans on the leaked list who were judged to be most at risk. To date, some 4,500 people — 900 applicants and approximately 3,600 family members — have been brought to Britain under the program. About 6,900 people are expected to be relocated by the time it closes, at a cost of 850 million pounds (US$1.1 billion).

In all, about 36,000 Afghans have been resettled in the U.K. since 2021.

Meanwhile, several news organizations had learned of the leaked list but were barred from publishing stories about it. They challenged the super injunction in court, and a judge ordered it lifted in May 2024 — but it remained in place after the government appealed.
The government finally came clean

Britain held an election in July 2024 that brought the center-left Labour Party to power. Prime Minister Keir Starmer and his Cabinet learned of the injunction soon after taking office and grappled with how to proceed.

In January, the government ordered a review by a former senior civil servant. They found little evidence that the leaked data would expose Afghans to a greater risk of retribution from the Taliban. The review said the Taliban had other sources of information on those who had worked with the previous Afghan government and international forces and is more concerned with current threats to its authority.

Given those findings, the government dropped its support for the super injunction. The injunction was lifted in court Tuesday, and minutes later Defense Secretary John Healey stood in the House of Commons to make the saga public for the first time.
Many questions remain unanswered

Healey said the secret settlement route was being closed, but acknowledged Wednesday that “the story is just beginning,” and many questions remain unanswered.

Immigration critics including Reform UK leader Nigel Farage are demanding to know what screening was done on the people who came under the secret program.

Lawyers for Afghans on the leaked list want to know why the information was kept from them. Adnan Malik, head of data privacy at U.K. legal firm Barings Law, said he was assembling a class-action lawsuit by hundreds of former translators, soldiers and others.

Lawmakers and free speech advocates say the use of a super injunction is deeply worrying. They ask how Parliament and the media can hold the government to account if there is such stringent secrecy.

Judge Martin Chamberlain, who ruled that the injunction should be lifted, said Tuesday at the High Court that the super injunction “had the effect of completely shutting down the ordinary mechanisms of accountability.”

Healey acknowledged that “you cannot have democracy with super injunctions in place,” and said the government had acted as quickly and safely as it could.

“Accountability starts now,” he told the BBC.

Jill Lawless, The Associated Press

The #US Senate approved early Thursday a package of spending cuts proposed by President Donald Trump that would cancel more than $9 billion in funding for foreign aid programs and public #broadcasting.

#Iran ready to respond to any new attack, supreme leader says.
Iran is ready to respond to any renewed military attack, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Wednesday, adding that Tehran was capable of delivering a bigger blow to adversaries than the one it gave during the 12-day Iran-Israel war.

“The fact that our nation is ready to face the power of the United States and its dog on a leash, the Zionist regime (Israel), is very praiseworthy,” Khamenei said in comments carried by state TV.

Israel and the U.S. launched strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities last month, saying that they were part of a program geared towards developing nuclear weapons. Tehran maintains that its nuclear program is purely for civilian purposes.

“The base attacked by Iran was an extremely sensitive American regional base,” Khamenei said in reference to an Iranian missile barrage on Al Udeid base in Qatar, adding “an even bigger blow could be inflicted on the U.S. and others.”

Iran is under pressure to resume nuclear talks with the U.S. as Washington and three major European countries have agreed to set the end of August as the deadline for a deal.

If no progress is reached by then, France’s foreign minister warned international sanctions would be reapplied via the United Nations snapback mechanism.

“In both the diplomatic and military fields, whenever we enter the stage we do so with our hands full and not from a position of weakness,” Khamenei said.

He urged diplomats to heed “guidelines” and vigorously continue their work, without elaborating.

Iran’s parliament shared a statement on Wednesday saying the country should not resume nuclear talks with the U.S. as long as preconditions are unmet.

(Reporting by Parisa Hafezi, Dubai newsroom; Editing by Alex Richardson and Andrew Cawthorne)

#Cuban minister under pressure for saying country has no beggars. Cuba’s labour minister denied there are beggars in the poor, Communist-run country in official testimony, prompting rare criticism by Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel of one of his own ministers on Tuesday.

“We have seen people who appear to be beggars, but when you look at their hands, when you look at the clothes those people wear, they are disguised as beggars ... In Cuba, there are no beggars,” Labor and Social Security Minister Marta Elena Feito said on Monday, while testifying before a commission of parliament.

“They have found an easy way of life, to make money and not to work as is appropriate,” she said in a statement broadcast live on state television.

Her words struck a nerve in Cuba, where years of crisis marked by runaway inflation and scarcity of basic goods have left large swaths of the population living day-to-day and a small, but increasing number of visibly impoverished people on the street,

“These people, who we sometimes describe as homeless or linked to begging, are actually concrete expressions of the social inequalities and the accumulated problems we face,” Diaz-Canel told the same commission on Tuesday.

“I do not share some of the criteria expressed in the commission on this issue,” he said.

Feito characterized people wiping windshields on street corners as possibly looking for money to get drunk, and those picking through garbage as unlicensed self-employed recyclers dodging taxes.

“The economic crisis has exacerbated social problems … the vulnerable are not our enemies,” Diaz-Canel said.

The minister was not seen during broadcasts of Tuesday’s parliament session.

Reporting by Marc Frank, additional reporting by Nelson Acosta; Editing by Rod Nickel

#Israel’s military said it was striking targets belonging to Hezbollah’s elite Radwan force in eastern Lebanon on Tuesday, the latest attack despite a ceasefire between Israel and the Iran-backed militant group.