What’s your problem, S’wakian MP slams Ridhuan Tee over Chinese uni remarks

What’s your problem, S’wakian MP slams Ridhuan Tee over Chinese uni remarks

Yesterday

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Chiew Choon Man accuses the preacher of stirring racial tension by suggesting Chinese leaders in Sarawak are pushing for a Chinese university in East Malaysia.

Miri MP Chiew Choon Man (left) told controversial preacher Ridhuan Tee Abdullah that the country of origin of a university does not determine the ethnicity of its students.

PETALING JAYA:

A Sarawakian MP has hit out at controversial preacher Ridhuan Tee Abdullah over the latter’s “inflammatory” remarks linked to a proposed Chinese university campus in the Bornean state.

Chiew Choon Man accused Ridhuan of stirring racial tension by suggesting that Chinese leaders in Sarawak were pushing for a “Chinese university” in East Malaysia and that such an institution could undermine national unity, the Dayak Daily reported.

“What exactly is his problem?” the Miri MP was quoted as saying.

Apart from claiming that Chinese leaders in Sarawak were pushing for a Chinese university, Ridhaun had yesterday also suggested that the leaders were not satisfied with merely pushing for the Unified Examination Certificate (UEC) recognition or with setting up the New Era University College.

Chiew went on to say that a university from China did not mean it would be exclusively for ethnic Chinese students, noting that universities from Australia, Japan or the UK are not restricted to people of those nationalities or ethnic backgrounds.

“The country of origin of a university does not determine the ethnicity of its students and should not be used as a pretext to stoke fear.”

The deputy tourism, art and culture minister also said that cultural or linguistic diversity will not become a barrier to unity.

“Unity is not undermined because a world-renowned university wants to open a campus in Sarawak.

“Unity is undermined when diversity is deliberately portrayed as a threat, and racial and religious fears are exploited to gain attention and political support,” he said, adding that inflammatory posts could deepen tensions between communities.

Chiew’s reprimand of Ridhuan comes a day after PKR’s Lembah Jaya assemblyman, Syed Ahmad Abdul Rahman Alhadad, hit out at the preacher for questioning the use of Chinese-language banners for the Hungry Ghost festival in Ampang.

Syed Ahmad, better known as rapper Altimet, said cultural differences should not be used to spark racial tension.

Iraq-Syria Pipeline To 'Bypass' Hormuz Likely To Take Four Years, $15BN To Build

Iraq-Syria Pipeline To 'Bypass' Hormuz Likely To Take Four Years, $15BN To Build

by Tyler Durden
Wednesday, Aug 19, 2026 - 04:25 AM


Via The Cradle

Iraq's plan to build a pipeline to export oil through Syria and partially bypass the Strait of Hormuz ​will likely take four years to complete and cost $15 billion, Reuters reported on Monday.

Iraq urgently seeks new outlets for its oil exports, which have plummeted since Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz in response to the US-Israel war on the Islamic Republic that started in February.

via Axios

In July, Baghdad exported only 35.5 million barrels through its Basra ports via the Strait of Hormuz, according to the state-run oil firm SOMO. Before the war, Iraq exported about 108 million barrels of oil per month.

The fall in exports has created a budget crisis, as Iraq relies on oil revenues to fund 90 percent of its spending.

Iraq and Syria signed a memorandum of understanding in Washington in July to revive a historic pipeline linking the Kirkuk fields to the Syrian port city of Banias on the Mediterranean Sea.

A separate agreement was signed with a consortium including Chevron, UCC Holding, and TI Capital to undertake technical and financial studies for the pipeline's reconstruction.

The pipeline is expected to transport 2 million barrels per day to the Syrian port, where the crude can then be shipped to Europe by tanker.

But a planned pipeline to export via Syria may not provide an alternative to Hormuz as soon as Iraqi officials had hoped.

"Both sources said the plan would require laying entirely new infrastructure rather than rehabilitating the existing pipeline and cost at least $15 billion," Reuters reported.

Rebuilding the pipeline could take as long as four years because it has been unused since the 1980s and is extensively damaged.

Even the intact sections of that pipeline would have to be replaced as they are not compatible with newly developed specifications, one of the sources said.

An entirely new integrated crude oil pipeline system linking Iraq's southern and northern fields to a central hub in ⁠Haditha, in western Iraq, would also have to be built, the second source stated.

The four-year timeline is also well beyond the two-year period estimated by US Treasury Scott Bessent for Hormuz to become "irrelevant" due to the construction of new underground pipelines by the Gulf states.

Trump Drops Map Of Hormuz As "New US Territory" Amid No Talks, Declares Strait "Open & Operating"; UAE Under Missile Alert

Trump Drops Map Of Hormuz As "New US Territory" Amid No Talks, Declares Strait "Open & Operating"; UAE Under Missile Alert

by Tyler Durden
Tuesday, Aug 18, 2026 - 11:55 PM


Summary

• No talks: Trump confirms US-Iran negotiations are off.
• Hormuz attack: Tanker hit, injuring a crew member.
• Houthis escalate: Attacks shut Yemen’s Mokha port.
• Diplomacy stalled: Qatar says not mediating until Oman-Hormuz deal finalized.
• Iran hardens: Tehran says it maintains an offensive posture.

* * *

UAE Under Missile Alert

While initial details and the precise nature of the threat remain unclear, the UAE has said it detected a missile threat targeting the country. "UAE air defense systems detected a missile threat targeting the county," the National Emergency Crisis and Disaster Management Authority said in a post on X. This has included Dubai residents receiving a UAE missile threat alert.

The country has not actually been targeted much by Iran throughout the war. The UAE has in follow-up said the situation is currently "safe" after the missile threat. Air-defenses detected two inbound:


UAE Defense Ministry said it detected two ballistic missiles launched from Iran, one missile fell outside territorial waters, second fell inside.


Trump Confirms 'No Talks' - Says Hormuz 'Open & Operating'; Oil Slides


President Trump issued a new Truth Social post, within hours after posting a map depicting the Strait of Hormuz as a 'new US territory'. He affirmed there are currently no talks or conversations happening with the Iranians - nor is there so much as anything scheduled. However, he claimed the strait is "open and operating" - with water minds having been "removed or detonated".


Perhaps as intended, oil reacted to the claim of an 'open' and supposedly mine-free Strait of Hormuz, sliding on the statement...


Iranian Attack on Outbound Tanker in Hormuz


Yet another attack has occurred in the Strait of Hormuz, this time on a foreign tanker on an outbound transit route, which Iran and Oman claim to directly oversee and administer according to the terms of the Oman deal for managing the strait which is still being finalized.

UK Maritime Trade Operations says Tuesday that the unknown projectile caused engine-room damage and a crew casualty, with the remaining crew being rescued and assisted by the Omani Coast Guard.




Such attacks which mark enforcement of Iran's protocol and claim of control over the vital energy transit waterway have been steady, though not rapid, over the last several weeks. Oil prices have been on the rise this week, also as it continues to be clear that Washington and Tehran are digging in with their competing maximum demands.
Houthis Escalate in Red Sea

Hormuz isn't the only chokepoint still witnessing active conflict. Waters off Yemen and the Red Sea also continue to heat up, with the Iranian-allied Houthi rebels still escalating.

According to The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday, the group is "shutting down operations at a strategic seaport and pushing closer to the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, an important global shipping chokepoint."

The report cites Yemeni authorities to describe, "The militant group’s recent missile and drone attacks forced the closure of the port of Mokha, a key logistics hub for civilian shipping and for anti-Houthi forces operating along the coast."

According to more on the significance:


"This is the most significant escalation in quite a few years, maybe since 2020," said Adam Baron, a Yemen expert and fellow with New America, a policy institute in Washington.

Baron called the port of Mokha the key logistics hub for anti-Houthi forces on the Red Sea. The Houthis control mountainous terrain inland from the Bab al-Mandeb but not the coast along the crucial waterway, which is held by opposing forces.
No Movement on Talks until After Oman Deal Signed: Qatar

On the question of finding a path toward broader US-Iran peace, there's still no movements on talks. Qatar is even openly saying that its direct mediation efforts won't resume until the Oman deal is finalized - which critics have complained gives Iran de facto control of operations in the Strait of Hormuz.

"Qatar’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Majed al-Ansari says during a news conference that countries mediating between Iran and the US are waiting for Iran and Oman to announce an expected agreement on transit through the Strait of Hormuz, before pushing Washington and Tehran to resume negotiations aimed at ending their war," Al Jazeera reports.

President Trump's latest rhetoric and social media activity is not going to help the cause of peace, or the two sides getting back to the negotiating table. After verbalizing Monday that the US should declare the Hormuz Strait a US territory, he posted the following to Truth Social on Tuesday:



All of this comes on the heels of the 60-day diplomatic window set by the MoU inked in June has expired. Tehran said it was already effectively dead anyway, and thus "irrelevant" - blaming Washington for having violated its terms on multiple occasions.
Rough Road to November

Trump is meanwhile ultimately sticking to the following as an ultimate goal of the Iran conflict: "The number one Goal is, and always will be, that Iran cannot have, in any way, shape, or form, a Nuclear Weapon. Thank you for your attention to this matter! President DONALD J. TRUMP," he earlier stated on Truth Social.

The path to midterm elections in November continues to be a rough one for the US administration, and the pain is likely to continue for at least the time being...


Not only has Iran not backed down, but its military is newly claiming to take an "offensive" posture and has reshuffled its command accordingly. If there are new tit-for-tat attacks, Tehran is in essence saying the next salvo will go bigger.

'A floating prison' - sailors describe life on warships like USS Abraham Lincoln

'A floating prison' - sailors describe life on warships like USS Abraham Lincoln

13 hours ago
Max Matza


Trump on USS Lincoln deployment: 'Not nearly long enough'

US Navy veteran Jonny Burnell spent 111 days aboard the warship USS Vinson during the US war with Afghanistan in 2001.

His role as a Navy photographer allowed him to visit crew throughout the ship, unlike most sailors who are confined to parts of the vessel where they work. In an age before digital photography, troops were often eager to get their picture snapped whenever they saw him.

Over more than three months aboard the USS Carl Vinson, he witnessed a change among the crew as their excitement and energy faded to what he called a "sadness".

"There was one point where there was a visible kind of deadness in the shipmates' eyes", he recalls. "I still think the hardest part of my job was watching the sadness in people's faces every frickin' day."

Burnell told the BBC he's been watching on the brink of tears as concern mounts about conditions aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln - which has been deployed as part of the US-Iran war since 11 December, more than double his deployment aboard the Vinson.

Military on the Lincoln are reportedly contending with food shortages, broken plumbing and exhaustion, according to two US publications that cover the military - the Military Times and Stars & Stripes.

Family members of sailors onboard have expressed concern about their mental health deteriorating due to the conditions, with some sailors having reportedly attempted to jump overboard.

Military officials have disputed that there are severe issues afflicting the ship, and some veterans have also suggested that the accounts in the media are overblown.

The reports in the media are largely inaccurate, and "99% hype," says retired Navy Lt Commander Steve Rogers, Director of the Association of the United States Navy (AUSN).

As part of his job for the AUSN - a non-profit that works to help US Navy servicemembers - he has been speaking to relatives of troops on the Lincoln. He says its normal for families to worry about their loved ones at war, and that the troops are well prepared for the situation they find themselves in.

In an interview with the BBC, a relative of one sailor on the Lincoln said that their family member had lost 65lbs (29kg), and has been suffering from exhaustion because of the constant noise and vibrations.

Asked about the situation aboard the Lincoln on Friday, Trump dismissed the reports, saying the deployment is "not nearly long enough". On Sunday, the head of US Central Command, which oversees operations in the Middle East, released a statement saying that of the 11 active aircraft carriers in the US military "the Lincoln currently has among the lowest number of cases related to mental health".

"This doesn't mean all is perfect," said Admiral Brad Cooper, adding that "service at sea for long periods isn't for everyone".

"It is uniquely challenging and tough," he continued, adding that "mental health is another aspect of individual health and requires our attention just like physical health and spiritual health".

Getty Images


Burnell, the former military photographer, says from his prior experience, he believes many members of the crew aboard the Lincoln don't get the chance to even visit the top deck due to their duties below. These troops could go long periods without seeing the sky.

One colleague on the Vinson, which Burnell described as a floating prison, did everything he could to get kicked off, including selling drugs and starting an "underground rave club", he says.

In Burnell's tiny bed, which troops referred to as "coffin racks", there was not room to turn over, and the cables that catch and slow aircrafts as they land ran through a wall right behind his head.

"It was just non-stop noise. The ship is just always loud," he says.

Planes are always landing or taking off and guns are always firing, he adds.

Jonathon BurnellBurnell served on a US aircraft carrier at the start of the US war in Afghanistan

US aircraft carrier on way to relieve USS Lincoln after issues reported on board

It remains unclear what the conditions on the Lincoln are like now. A crew from CNN visited last month, and did not discover any widespread issues during the three days on board. Several troops mentioned being forced to ration food, and losing weight over "many months", but when CNN boarded on 7 July, "food was plentiful," the outlet reported. Showers were also hot, although there were some signs of mould.

The US has deployed another battleship to relieve the Lincoln, which should arrive in the Middle East in another week.

The replacement ship, the USS George Washington, has had its own history of mental health challenges.

In 2022, a spate of suicides aboard the ship - while it was still docked at a port in Virginia - led to a military inspector's investigation. The conclusion of the investigation found the deaths were not caused by any one issue, but were the result of several problems related to poor living conditions.

The report, released in May 2023, found that the Navy's top brass had "let our standards slip - and in doing so we let our people down."

Dr Harold Kudler, the former head of mental health policy for the US Veterans Administration (VA) says the issue has been studied by the US government for years.

Kudler says the isolation of being aboard a ship, with moments of prolonged boredom followed by "extreme alertness", can amplify mental-health struggles.

"You don't know where the front is," he says, describing the situation aboard the Lincoln.

"Especially in this kind of asynchronistic war that we're seeing."

These factors can be overwhelming, for both enlisted troops and officers as well.

"You're isolated. You don't know exactly what's going to happen. You're not even sure what the mission is anymore. And you don't know when you're going to come home."

During World War 2, the military created a training film to help soldiers who may be dealing with "combat irritability".

The film depicted a sailor who was below deck, tasked with watching machines in an enclosed, lonely room while the war against the enemy raged outside.

"He can't see the enemy. He doesn't know what's going on topside. His job is to watch the two gauges in the engine room," Kudler says.

The point of the film was to illustrate that troops who don't directly fire weapons are still "under tremendous stress, high alertness and subject to exhaustion".

Part of Kudler's time with the Veteran Administration included studying suicide. Years of research by the VA has determined troops and veterans are at a 50% higher risk of suicide compared to the general American population.

The challenge for the military is to make each soldier and sailor feel like an important part of the overall mission, while also acknowledging some of the monotony of being a cog in a larger machine, he says. To combat the isolation and boredom, troops sometimes do fun activities aboard the ship, like hold singing competitions and picnics on the top deck.

Kudler supports the call by Democrats in Congress to lead an investigation into the situation onboard the Lincoln, and how it got to this point.

"The ship can only perform as well as its crew," he says.

"Those 5,000 people comprise a community. Not just men and women under stress. It's a community under stress."

"The capabilities of the ship fall off as the crew falls off. So if the reports that are being shared are true, one really has to worry."

Rogers, of the AUSN, has spent weeks at a time on small Navy ships, and says that issues with depression and boredom are normal among military ranks.

"We're all human beings. We all go through difficult times."

He blames the media for spreading false information, which he calls "absolutely outrageous", and is enraged by the harm he says it is causing to the morale of troops and their families.

Troops can be bored or anxious, but the ships they are on have chaplains and mental health counsellors, he says, and the troops are well-equipped to deal with the stress.

Reported talk of sailors debating whether to jump off the ship is overblown, he contends, recalling jokes that were made during his time on an aircraft carrier.

"I remember one guy said, 'I wish I could parachute outta here,'" he chuckles, dismissing it as "locker room talk".

A Tale of Two Genocides: Cambodia & Israel

Consortium News
Volume 31, Number 223— Monday, August 17, 2026


A Tale of Two Genocides: Cambodia & Israel


Where Cambodia chose the difficult, winding road of national healing, Israel spurred a suicidal treadmill of retribution in the Middle East, writes Laurent Evrard

Phnom Penh Skyline from the Toul Kork area. (Looppty /Wikimedia Commons/CC BY-SA 4.0)

By Laurent Evrard
in Phnom Penh
Special to Consortium News

History is written in blood, but it is redeemed by choice. Across the theater of human suffering, few nations have stared into the abyss of total annihilation quite like Cambodia.

Under the psychotic agrarian utopia of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge, nearly a quarter of the country’s population of eight million people was systematically starved, worked to death, or executed in the Killing Fields. It was a mechanized madness intended to reset human civilization to year zero.

Yet, out of those pulverized skulls and mass graves emerged something miraculous: a profound, defiant capacity for resilience and reconciliation.

Compare this monumental human triumph with the tragic, blood-drenched labyrinth of the Middle East — specifically the ongoing devastation in Gaza, the West Bank and the wider web of hostilities involving Israel and its Arab and Iranian neighbors.

Where Cambodia chose the difficult, winding road of national healing, Israel spurred a suicidal treadmill of retribution in the Middle East, proving that while war is easy to start, vengeance is an eternity that devours its own children.

While Cambodians forgave their killers, the Israelis have exacted revenge — not against their executioners — but against an innocent people whom Israel victimized by ethnically cleansing and seizing their land to create the settler colony of Israel.


The Cambodian Miracle: Forgiveness as a Revolutionary Act

Memorial stupa at the Choeung Ek Killing Fields Genocidal Center in Phnom Penh. (Joe Lauria)


How does a society rebuild when neighbor killed neighbor and children were brainwashed to turn on their own parents?

Instead of plunging into an endless cycle of multi-generational blood feuds, Cambodia engineered a masterpiece of pragmatic peace. Through a combination of legal accountability — symbolized by the hybrid tribunal that brought surviving architects of the Khmer Rouge regime to justice — and the visionary Win-Win Policy, the Cambodian people achieved the impossible.

The state chose national integration over eternal ostracization. Former combatants and even lower-level cadres were folded back into society, stripped of their weapons but granted dignity, land, and a future.

The Khmer spirit recognized a harrowing truth: if you live by the shovel of the mass grave, you will eventually bury your entire nation. By choosing coexistence over total extermination, Cambodia transformed fields of bones into foundations of a booming, peaceful society. They stopped counting bodies and started counting tomorrows.


Wisdom of the Lotus

A cell at the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum in Phnom Penh, an extermination camp in a former high school where as many as 20,000 people were tortured and killed. There were only 12 known survivors. (Joe Lauria)

To understand Cambodia’s miracle of reconciliation, one must look to its spiritual bedrock: Theravada Buddhism.

Unlike the rigid, legalistic retributive justice encoded in ancient Abrahamic traditions — exemplified by the Mosaic law of Lex Talionis (“an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth”) — Buddhist philosophy teaches radical impermanence (Anicca), non-harming (Ahimsa) and the total liberation from the poisons of hatred.

Where a warrior-like ethos demands proportional vengeance and keeps historical trauma alive through sacred memory and divine scorekeeping, Buddhism offers a profound humanism: hatred ceases not by hatred, but by love alone.

This philosophical divergence carries a heavy historical cost. The relentless eye-for-an-eye paradigm — deeply embedded in the cultural and geopolitical survival mechanisms of modern Israel — has blinded its leadership to the universal suffering of others.

By adopting the very mechanisms of disproportionate destruction that once sought to annihilate them, the moral credit and universal compassion earned by the Jewish people during the unspeakable horrors of the Holocaust have been tragically squandered on the smoking ruins of Gaza.

Geometry of Absolute Destruction

Gaza under Israeli attack, 2023-2025. (Jaber Jehad Badwan /Wikimedia Commons/ CC BY-SA 4.0)


Turn your gaze westward, and the contrast is as blinding as it is heartbreaking. In Gaza and the West Bank, the landscape is once again choked with the dust of collapsed apartment blocks and the silent grief of parents holding lifeless infants.

Israel’s military doctrine — driven by an existential trauma that demands absolute security through absolute dominance — has devolved into a murderous frenzy. In flattening Gaza and suffocating the West Bank, it treats entire civilian populations as acceptable collateral damage.

But physical walls, blockades and iron domes cannot quarantine a people from the blowback of despair. Every child buried under concrete in Gaza is a seedbed for tomorrow’s resistance, ensuring that the trauma of today becomes the terrorism of tomorrow.

Simultaneously, the surrounding Arab dynamics and regional proxy wars have long treated the Palestinian cause not as a human reality to be rescued, but as a perpetual political currency.

This is the architecture of eternal hatred. Israel pounds populations into submission under the illusion of “crushing” an enemy, oblivious to the fact that you cannot bomb a people into loving you or securing your borders.

The Palestinians and regional actors, trapped in a fatalistic script of perpetual victimhood and resistance, too often romanticize struggle without a horizon of coexistence. It is a symmetrical dance of death where both sides believe that if they just kill enough of the “other,” peace will magically appear on the smoking ruins.

The Lesson of the Century

The Khmer Rogue kept meticulous records of their victims at the Tuol Sleng extermination camp. (Joe Lauria)


The juxtaposition of Cambodia and the Middle East lays bare a stark moral lesson for humanity: Genocide and mass violence can either be treated as a terminal disease or a catalyst for profound reinvention.

The Khmer people proved that humanity can metabolize even the most horrific industrial-scale trauma, look the executioner in the eye and decide that the chain of blood must break here. They understood that true victory is not the eradication of the enemy, but the eradication of enmity itself.

Until leaders in Tel Aviv, Gaza, and across the Middle East look at the ruins of their own making and realize that absolute military victory is a delusion — and that collective punishment only breeds collective doom — they will remain prisoners of their own history.

Cambodia rose from the ashes because it chose the courage of pardon. The Middle East continues to burn to the ground because it insists on the cowardice of endless revenge.

Mass graves at Killing Fields of Choeung Ek in Cambodia, 2011. (Jwslubbock / Wikimedia Commons/CC BY-SA 4.0)



Laurent Evrard is a Belgian finance and wealth management professional with 30 years of experience in the Luxembourg financial sector (1991–2021). Currently based in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, he divides his time between managing hospitality ventures, lecturing on financial analysis and international strategy at the university level, and writing on global financial and strategic matters

No DAP partnership in Melaka polls or I walk, warns Akmal Saleh

No DAP partnership in Melaka polls or I walk, warns Akmal Saleh

By RSN MURALI

Tuesday, 18 Aug 2026 | 7:46 PM MYT


MELAKA: Umno Youth chief Datuk Dr Muhamad Akmal Saleh has rejected any prospect of working with DAP in the Melaka state election, saying he will not contest if Barisan Nasional and Pakatan Harapan forge an electoral partnership.

The Merlimau assemblyman said he was willing to forgo defending the seat he currently holds to remain true to his political principles.


"I reiterate my stand that if Barisan and Pakatan cooperate in the Melaka polls, I will not contest.

“I would rather defend my principles than hold on to my position as an elected representative,” he said when contacted on Tuesday (Aug 18).


He was responding to the latest developments suggesting that Barisan and Pakatan could hold talks on possible cooperation in the coming state election.

Earlier on Tuesday (Aug 18), Pakatan secretary-general Datuk Seri Saifuddin Nasution Ismail was reported as saying that he had not ruled out meeting Melaka Barisan chairman Datuk Seri Ab Rauf Yusoh to discuss the matter during an event in Putrajaya.

The PKR vice-president, who is currently performing the duties of the party’s deputy president, said a meeting could be held after Ab Rauf returned from a working visit to New Zealand.

The possibility of an electoral understanding arose after Barisan chairman Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said on Aug 8 that the coalition remained open to negotiating seat allocations for the Melaka polls.

Ahmad Zahid said the discussions could include possible seat swaps, provided they were conducted honestly and in good faith.

He added that any negotiations must respect the fundamental principle that seats won by a party should remain with that party and not simply be handed to its political partners.

In response, Pakatan communications director Datuk Seri Fahmi Fadzil welcomed Barisan’s willingness to negotiate, saying such openness would serve Melaka’s future and political stability, as well as the country’s interests.

 

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US calls Israeli strike on Syria's Abu al-Duhur air base an 'unnecessary escalation'

By Middle East correspondent Matthew Doran

• Topic:War

Posted 38m ago38 minutes ago

A file photo of the Abu al-Duhur air base in Syria, which Israel struck earlier today. (AFP: George Ourfalian)

In short: 

Israel conducted eight airstrikes against the Abu al-Duhur base in the north west of Syria, 70km from the Turkish border. 

Regional news sources reported the base's runway and storage fracilities were hit, citing the Syrian military. 

What's next? 

US Ambassador to Turkiye and special envoy for Syria and Iraq, Tom Barrack condemned the strike and said the two countries should "prioritise logical discourse over further military incidents".

Link copied

The United States has condemned Israeli air strikes on a Syrian air base, labelling it an "unnecessary escalation" and insisting the new Syrian government is not the threat the Netanyahu government argues it is.

Syrian state television has reported eight Israeli airstrikes hit the Abu al-Duhur base in the north west of the country, not far and 70 kilometres from the Turkish border.

The Ekhbariya outlet reported the base's runway and storage facilities were hit, citing a Syrian military source.

The Israeli military has yet to comment.

In a statement, the Syrian foreign ministry condemned the attacks and described them as an "unjustified act of aggression, a flagrant violation of Syria's sovereignty and territorial integrity, and a dangerous escalation that threatens security and stability in the region".

It said the "Syrian state has exercised restraint and worked to consolidate stability and avoid escalation" with Israel, despite coming under repeated attacks since early December 2024, when the former Assad regime was toppled.

That sentiment was shared by the US Ambassador to Turkiye and special envoy for Syria and Iraq, Tom Barrack.

"The Al-Sharra government has neither adopted a predatory posture nor maintained proxy forces," he posted on X.

"It has, in fact, repeatedly indicated a preference for de-escalation with Israel.

"The United States has in the past, and will continue in the future, to host discussions to encourage diplomatic cadence over kinetic frustration for both nations."

Mr Barrack said countries should "prioritise logical discourse over further military incidents". 

Israel at odds with US over closer Syria ties

Benjamin Netanyahu's Israeli administration has expressed its deep concerns about the new Syrian government, led by former rebel leader Ahmed Al-Sharaa.

Mr Al-Sharaa, a former Al Qaeda commander, swept to power in December 2024 as his forces ended the five-decade long Assad family dictatorship.

While publicly stating he wants to unify the civil war-ravaged country, Israel has cited Mr Al-Sharaa's history and ties to extreme Islamist ideology to justify its own "security" measures against Syria.

Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa said he aims to unify the war torn country. (Reuters: Yves Herman)

This has included deploying Israeli forces into south-western Syria, beyond the border of the occupied Golan Heights, and launching strikes on some towns and cities in the area.

Why did Israel reject Gaza plan?

Israel's rejection of Donald Trump's Gaza peace plan is not a surprise. Here's why and how politics plays into it ahead of an Israeli election.

It has put Israel at odds with the United States, and particularly Donald Trump's White House, which has fostered deeper ties with the new Syrian government.

That has included lifting crippling economic sanctions against Syria, and even inviting the president to the White House — a move which would have been unthinkable just a few years ago, when Mr Al-Sharaa was subject of a US bounty.

In recent months, the Syrian government has tried to rebuild the country's air force — something Israel has seen as another threat to its own security.

With Reuters