Four people were killed in an attempt to smuggle large amounts of drugs from Syria to Jordan, the kingdom’s armed forces said on Sunday. Some smugglers, Asharq Al-Awsat reported, were also wounded while others escaped by going back to Syria, Reuters quoted the statement as saying. In January, Jordanian soldiers killed at least 27 armed smugglers and wounded others as they crossed the border.
The Ministry of Health launched a massive national Covid-19 vaccination campaign under the slogan (A new opportunity to be safe), which will last until June 2nd. According to the Tishreen newspaper, the campaign targets all citizens above 18 years of age in different provinces through the accredited centers in hospitals, health centers and mobile teams. 7,400 health workers are participating in the campaign distributed in 37 hospitals, 986 health centers, and 386 mobile teams. The number of people who received the vaccine completely in Syria has reached up to 3,4 million.
Tens of thousands of Iraqi nationals, mostly women and children, are “stuck in limbo” in a camp in northeastern Syria as violence against them and regional risks increase, Al-Monitor reported. Iraqi nationals continue to be killed in the vast confusion of the sprawling al-Hol camp in northeastern Syria as repatriation continues at a trickle. Many are women being found with gunshot wounds to their heads, while some have been beheaded.
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Three Syrian soldiers were killed after the Israeli military struck targets using surface-to-surface missiles near the Syrian capital of Damascus on Friday night, Syria’s official state media reported. It was the second alleged Israeli attack in Syria in a week, after airstrikes last Friday targeted a structure in the country’s northwestern Masyaf region. A Twitter account tracking Israeli military activity in Syria claimed the strikes targeted sites in the suburb of Sayyidah Zaynab, south of Damascus. Syria’s Sham FM radio station said a fire had ignited near Damascus International Airport, southeast of the city, as a result of the strikes. The claims could not immediately be independently verified. The strikes came hours after the IDF’s Arabic-language spokesperson accused the son-in-law of assassinated Iran Revolutionary Guards Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani of smuggling weapons from Iran to its Lebanese proxy Hezbollah using civilian flights via Syria.
Russia’s deputy UN ambassador says he sees no reason to continue humanitarian aid deliveries from Turkey to rebel-held northwest Syria, accusing the West and the United Nations of insufficient efforts to deliver aid from Damascus and failing to finance “early recovery projects” to improve life for millions of Syrians, Associated Press reported. Dmitry Polyansky told the UN Security Council on Friday that “we are not okay” with preserving the status quo at any cost, and cannot “turn a blind eye to the fact that terrorists from HTS,” the strongest militant group in northwest Idleb, “usurp the authority and manipulate humanitarian assistance.” He said supporters of cross-border aid deliveries “show no wish” to enable aid deliveries across conflict lines from Damascus which could be easily arranged, “which leaves us no reason to preserve the cross-border mechanism.”
