U.S. President-elect Donald Trump made bold statements on the social media platform Truth, alleging that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has fled the country and criticizing Russia for its involvement in Syria.
Donald Trump © Mena Today
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump made bold statements on the social media platform Truth, alleging that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has fled the country and criticizing Russia for its involvement in Syria.
"Assad is no longer there. He has fled his country. His protector, Russia, led by Vladimir Putin, no longer wished to shield him," Trump wrote. He added that Russia "had no reason to be there in the first place" and suggested the Kremlin has lost interest in Syria due to its focus on Ukraine.
According to Trump, Russia is preoccupied with the war in Ukraine, where "nearly 600,000 Russian soldiers are wounded or dead" in a conflict he described as unnecessary and potentially endless.
He also argued that "Russia and Iran are both weakened"—Russia by the economic and human toll of Ukraine, and Iran by "Israel's successes on the battlefield."
Syria's Interior Ministry announced Saturday that its counter-terrorism directorate, in cooperation with the internal security command around Damascus, had thwarted a bomb plot targeting a religious figure near a Maronite church in the Bab Touma district of the capital, and has linked the cell to Hezbollah.
Ukraine and Syria pledged greater security cooperation in talks on Sunday, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said as Kyiv seeks to promote its military expertise across the region following the outbreak of the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran.
The United Arab Emirates on Saturday condemned what it described as "riots, acts of vandalism, and assaults" outside its diplomatic mission and the residence of its head of mission in Damascus.
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