December 12, 2024: Syria civil war news

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More than 1.1 million people have been displaced across Syria since the country was plunged into unrest after the collapse of the Assad regime, according to United Nations estimates.

Tens of thousands of displaced people are staying at about 200 centers in northeast Syria, where aid organizations are distributing food, cash, hygiene kits and other supplies, said the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) in a Thursday update.

It added that food shortages are widespread in Aleppo, the country’s second-largest city, and fuel prices remain high. Nearby fighting has disrupted access to water and caused power outages affecting more than 400,000 people in the area since Tuesday, it said.

The UN and its partners are working to deliver aid, with 26 trucks carrying food aid crossing from Turkey into northwest Syria on Wednesday, UNOCHA said. However, conditions remain tough in that region due to checkpoints, security issues and reports of looting.

A former Syrian military official who oversaw a prison where alleged human rights abuses took place has been charged with several counts of torture after being arrested in July for visa fraud charges, authorities said Thursday.

Samir Ousman al-Sheikh, who oversaw Syria’s infamous Adra Prison from 2005 to 2008 under recently ousted President Bashar Assad, was charged by a federal grand jury with several counts of torture and conspiracy to commit torture.

“It’s a huge step toward justice,” said Mouaz Moustafa, executive director of the US-based Syrian Emergency Task Force. “Samir Ousman al-Sheikh’s trial will reiterate that the United States will not allow war criminals to come and live in the United States without accountability, even if their victims were not US citizens.”

Read more about the charges.

Travis Pete Timmerman, a US citizen who went missing in Syria, speaks to press in Damascus, Syria on December 12.

The parents of an American man who was found in Syria after going missing earlier this year said they were relieved he was safe following a difficult seven months in which they feared “the worst.”

Travis Timmerman, 29, was discovered by locals as he walked barefoot in the streets of southern Damascus on Thursday. He said he was kept in prison for months after entering the country as a pilgrim.

“Tears, started bawling, it was so emotional,” Timmerman’s stepfather Richard Gardiner told CNN affiliate KYTV. “I’m thinking the worst, after seven months you just think he’s gone.”

Gardiner said he called Timmerman’s mother, Stacey Timmerman, to break the news. “I called her up and said, ‘It’s him, and he’s alive!’ So we both cried on the phone,” Gardiner said.

Thousands of people have been released from prisons across Syria this week, after rebels toppled the country’s longtime dictator Bashar al-Assad.

Speaking to CBS News, Timmerman said he had been detained in a Syrian prison after entering the country without permission for “spiritual purposes,” having crossed its border with Lebanon.

He said his cell door was broken down on Monday by two men armed with AK-47s, CBS News reported, and left the prison with a large group to try and reach Jordan.

Chaos broke out in Syria’s northern city of Raqqa on Thursday as hundreds took to the streets to celebrate Bashar al-Assad’s regime falling, with at least one person killed and 15 wounded after errant gunfire led to panic and clashes with security forces, according to a local journalist and witnesses.

Syrians had been gathered in the city center, with some expressing their joy with celebratory gunfire, when a man lost control of his machine gun and mistakenly opened fire on bystanders, injuring several people, according to witnesses speaking to CNN and the activist group Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently.

In a post on its Facebook page, the group said there were “many injuries due to the weapon slipping (off his hand), but no deaths were recorded.” It added that the man is affiliated with the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a mainly Kurdish umbrella group that controls the city.

CNN cannot independently verify the circumstances of the incident.

Key context: Tension has been on the rise in Raqqa since the fall of the regime between the US-backed SDF and the Turkish-backed Free Syrian Army (FSA). Some residents in the predominately Arab city have called on the SDF to hand over control of the city to the FSA. The majority of Raqqa’s population is Arab, with Kurds being the minority.

After the gunfire: Skirmishes broke out between young men and a Iocal security group affiliated with the SDF, the Internal Security Forces, with the men throwing stones and the security forces responding with gunfire.

Some people tried to take advantage of the disorder by storming Raqqa central court to free detainees, but they were pushed back by the security forces, which opened fire to disperse them, according to witnesses and a statement by the security forces.

At least one person was killed and several injured in the chaos outside the court, according to a local journalist and two witnesses.

The Internal Security Forces said some of its members were among those hurt.

Battered bodies inside the morgue of Mujtahid Hospital. Part of this image has been obscured by CNN.

The bruised and battered bodies inside the morgue of Mujtahid Hospital are hard to look at — tangible evidence of the brutal regime of toppled Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad.

But crowds of desperate people wait to see them, hoping finally for an answer to what happened to a loved one.

“Where are they?” pleads one woman. “My mother, she’s been missing for 14 years, where is she? Where is my brother, where is my husband, where are they?

The 35 or so bodies were found in a military hospital in the Syrian capital of Damascus, days after the regime fell. They are believed to be among the last victims of Assad. A man points to their tattered clothing and suggests they were detainees at the notorious Saydnaya prison.

The bodies are identified only by number inside the fluorescent-lit morgue. But there isn’t enough room, so a makeshift area has been set up outside where families gather, using their cellphone lights to look at the faces of the dead, hunting for features they recognize.

But they also see the horrific wounds that seem to be consistent with torture. A woman searching among the bodies retches as she leaves the morgue.

Dr. Ahmed Abdullah, an employee at the morgue, condemns the people who left these marks, accusing the Assad regime.

Read more here about the horrors of life and death in Syria

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, left, shakes hands with Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erodgan during their meeting at Ankara Esenboga Airport on Thursday, December 12.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken emphasized to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan that it is critical that the coalition to “defeat ISIS can continue to execute its critical mission” in Syria, according to a statement from the spokesperson for the US State Department.

The message comes amid a spate of fighting between Turkish-backed militants and the US-supported Syrian Defense Forces (SDF).

Blinken’s roughly hour-long meeting in the Turkish capital of Ankara also focused on the need for a “Syrian-owned political transition to an accountable and inclusive government,” and the continued protection of displaced Syrians, the statement said.

Some context: The primarily Kurdish SDF is a key ally of the US in preventing the resurgence of the terrorist group in northeast Syria. Top SDF Gen. Mazloum Abdi said this week that the attacks by the Turkish-supported groups has forced his forces to halt their anti-ISIS operations.

“If these attacks persist, joint operations will remain suspended. ISIS is now stronger in the Syrian desert,” he told Sky News on Wednesday.

The top US diplomat, speaking ahead of his meeting with Erdogan, noted that Turkey “has real and clear interests, particularly when it comes to the PKK and terrorism,” calling it “an enduring threat.”

“At the same time, again, we want to avoid sparking any kinds of additional conflicts inside of Syria at a time when we want to see this transition to an interim government into a better way forward for Syria,” he said in Jordan. “And part of that also has to be ensuring that ISIS doesn’t rear its ugly head again.”

Jordan will host a summit on Syria over the weekend with foreign ministers from Western and Arab nations, the foreign ministry in Amman announced in a statement Thursday.

Top diplomats will meet on Saturday in the Jordanian coastal city of Aqaba to discuss ways to support a smooth transitional process “led by Syrians,” the statement said.

Top diplomats from numerous Arab nations will be there, including:

They will convene with:

The summit will focus on reconstructing Syrian state institutions in a way that “preserves Syria’s unity, territorial integrity, sovereignty, security, stability, and the rights of all its citizens,” the statement said.

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres has conveyed his deep concern over “the recent and extensive violations of Syria’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

Guterres says he is “particularly concerned over the hundreds of Israeli airstrikes on several locations in Syria,” stressing “the urgent need to de-escalate violence on all fronts, throughout Syria,” according to a statement released by his office Thursday.

The collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s regime has prompted a military response from Israel, which has launched airstrikes at military targets across Syria and deployed ground troops both into and beyond a demilitarized buffer zone for the first time in 50 years.

The Israeli military on Tuesday said it had carried out about 480 strikes across the country over two days, hitting most of Syria’s strategic weapon stockpiles. Defense Minister Israel Katz also said the Israeli navy had destroyed the Syrian fleet overnight, hailing the operation as “a great success.”

Israel has said it is trying to make sure that the military equipment does not fall into the hands of adversaries.

Travis Pete Timmerman, a U.S. citizen who went missing in Syria, speaks to press after being found following the fall of the Assad regime in Damascus, Syria on December 12.

Syria’s new caretaker government said it will cooperate with the United States in trying to locate Americans who went missing in Syria during the Assad regime. It comes after the government announced Thursday that one man believed to be a missing US citizen, Travis Timmerman, was found south of Damascus.

The collapse of the Assad regime has prompted a punishing military response from Israel, which has launched airstrikes at military targets across the country and deployed ground troops both into and beyond a demilitarized buffer zone inside.

Here’s what to know:

Power transition: Syrian rebel leader Mohammad al-Jolani he would dissolve the security forces and “close the notorious prisons” of the toppled Assad regime, according to a written statement to Reuters. Separately, rebel-linked Mohammad Al-Bashir, who has been appointed as the country’s prime minister, reiterated to Italian media that the interim government will only stay until March. A joint delegation from Turkey and Qatar arrived in Damascus for talks with the caretaker Syrian government.

City of Manbij: The Free Syrian Army (FSA), a Turkey-backed rebel coalition in northern Syria, says it is beginning a four-day ceasefire around the city of Manbij — northeast of Aleppo — where it has been fighting the mainly Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). The US has been concerned that the battles in northern Syrian could imperil efforts to ensure that the Islamic State terror organization does not find a foothold in the region.

US officials in the region: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi and Jordanian King Abdullah II. He discussed the US’ support for “an inclusive transition” to a new government in Syria with the king, according to a readout. He also intends to meet with Turkey’s president and foreign minister. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan met in Jerusalem to discuss events in Syria, according to the prime minister’s office.

American found in Damascus: A man identifying himself as US citizen Travis Timmerman, believed to be a missing Missouri man, has been found in Damascus. He told CBS News, that he had been detained in a Syrian prison for seven months after entering the country without permission, having crossed its border with Lebanon. He said he had decided to travel to Syria for “spiritual purposes.” Blinken, without providing any details, said the US is working to bring the man home.

Another missing American: Syria’s new caretaker governor said that efforts were ongoing to locate American citizen Austin Tice, a journalist who was abducted in 2012 and was believed held by the Syrian government.

Israeli strikes: Israel sent troops into the “buffer zone” between Israel and Syria and has struck Syrian air bases, ports, and weapons stockpiles across the country. Blinken said the US is speaking with Israel directly about its military actions in Syria to “make sure that we’re not sparking any additional conflicts.”

Meanwhile in Gaza: Hamas and Israel are “talking seriously” about a hostage and ceasefire deal in Gaza, a diplomatic source familiar with the matter told CNN. It comes as health authorities in Gaza say nearly 40 people have been killed in Israeli airstrikes overnight and early Thursday.

U.S National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan speaks during a news conference in Tel Aviv, Israel, on December 12.

White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters in Jerusalem that parties are “looking to close” a Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal following meetings with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and top Israeli officials as he projected cautionary optimism about the potential for a deal in the next month.

Sullivan added that he will be traveling to Doha, Qatar, and Cairo, Egypt, to continue negotiations with other mediators involved in the talks as they seek to finalize a deal before President Joe Biden leaves office.

When asked by CNN’s Jeremy Diamond about reports over potential concessions that both sides have indicated they would make to secure a deal, Sullivan declined to provide any further details: “I can’t negotiate in public on the terms of the hostage deal.”

But Sullivan did stress that amid the seismic geopolitical shifts in the region following the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria and Israel’s ceasefire deal with Hezbollah have helped shift Hamas’ previous negotiating posture.

Sullivan also stressed that the outgoing administration has been in close contact with president-elect Donald Trump’s team to send a “common message” amid the ongoing political transition in the US as they work to finalize a ceasefire and hostage deal.

“We’ve had, as I said in my opening comments, very good consultation and coordination with them, including on this issue, where we keep them apprised of how the negotiations are unfolding. We talk to them about how we can send a common message that the United States, no matter who is sitting in the Oval Office, no matter who’s parties is in charge, wants to see this ceasefire in hostage deal and see it now,” he said.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaks to reporters on the tarmac before his departure from King Hussein International Airport, Jordan, on December 12.

The US is speaking with Israel directly about its military actions in Syria in the wake of the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime, according to Secretary of State Antony Blinken, saying it is “really important… that we all try to make sure that we’re not sparking any additional conflicts.”

“The stated purpose of those actions from the Israelis is to try to make sure that equipment that’s been abandoned — military equipment that’s been abandoned by the Syrian army — doesn’t fall into the wrong hands, terrorists, extremists, etc.,” Blinken said to reporters before departing Jordan for Turkey.

Israel sent troops into the “buffer zone” between Israel and Syria and has struck Syrian air bases, ports, and weapons stockpiles across the country.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has met in Jerusalem with White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan to discuss events in Syria, according to the prime minister’s office.

Sullivan said later during a news conference that the US is “in deep consultations with the Israeli government about where this goes from here, what that will look like in the days and weeks ahead.”

“We do have every expectation that it will be temporary,” Sullivan added. “And we take them at their word that that is the intention here, as we work through a new arrangement that can ensure that Israel is secure.”

This post has been updated with comments from Sullivan.

Dozens of Syrians have taken to the streets of Damascus mourning prominent activist Mazen al-Hamada, whose body was found in a prison in the city after rebel forces swept through.

Hamada was a well-known face of the Syrian protests during 2011’s Arab Spring. He fled to the Netherlands, where he testified on the torture he had been subjected to under Assad’s regime for nearly two years for his involvement in the demonstrations.

He was arrested in February 2020 at the Damascus airport upon his return to Syria and had not been seen since.

In the video, obtained by Reuters, people chant: “Syria is national unity” and “we are the Syrian revolutionaries.”

See how people turned out to celebrate his life here:

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Procession for Mazen al-Hamada, a Syrian activist found dead in a Damascus prison

00:25 - Source: CNN

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that he will meet with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan to coordinate on Syria and to focus on “preventing any actor inside or outside the country from putting their narrow self-interests ahead of the interests of the Syrian people.”

Blinken said he spoke with Jordanian King Abdullah and Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi while in Jordan “to build up and build out that unified approach” toward Syria.

“I’ll continue those conversations with President Erdogan and Foreign Minister Fidan in Turkey as we head there going forward,” said Blinken.

Blinken reiterated the US commitment from stopping ISIS from growing in Syria in the wake of the rebellion that took down the dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad.

“I think as we’ve demonstrated, the United States is determined to prevent that from happening,” said Blinken, referring to ISIS regrouping.

A joint delegation from Turkey and Qatar has arrived in Damascus for talks with the caretaker Syrian government.

The group included Turkish foreign minister Hakan Fidan, the head of Turkish intelligence Ibrahim Kalin and Qatari state security chief Khalfan Al-Kaabi.

Syria’s interim government said the delegation was due to meet the rebel commander Mohammad al-Jolani, whose real name is Ahmed al-Sharaa, the de facto leader of the new administration. They will also meet caretaker Prime Minister Mohammed Al-Bashir.

The Syrian information ministry said the meeting aims to “encourage the new Syrian leadership to engage with the Arab, regional, and international environment.”

“Efforts will also focus on promoting internal political dialogue among all opposition parties and contributing to the political and economic revival of the country,” it said.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaks to reporters on the tarmac before his departure from King Hussein International Airport in Jordan on December 12.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the US is working to bring home the American found in Syria Thursday.

The top US diplomat did not provide any further details about the man, believed to be Travis Timmerman, citing privacy considerations.

Travis Pete Timmerman, a U.S. citizen who went missing in Syria, speaks to press after being found following the fall of the Assad regime in Damascus, Syria on December 12.

Syria’s new caretaker government said it is ready to cooperate with the United States in trying to locate Americans who went missing in Syria during the Assad regime.

The government announced Thursday that one US citizen, Travis Timmerman, who was found south of Damascus on Thursday, was safe.

It added that efforts were ongoing to locate American citizen Austin Tice, a journalist who was abducted in 2012 and was believed held by the Syrian government.

The Free Syrian Army (FSA), a Turkey-backed rebel coalition in northern Syria, says it is beginning a four-day ceasefire around the city of Manbij — northeast of Aleppo — where it has been fighting the mainly Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

The ceasefire began at 5 p.m. local time Thursday (9 a.m. ET) and will last until Monday, the FSA said.

According to the group, the agreement will include the withdrawal of the SDF from Manbij city and its surroundings, and their handover to a local council.

“We emphasize the importance of all parties adhering to the agreement to ensure security and stability in the region during this period,” the FSA added.

The SDF has now withdrawn from Manbij following what it described as a fragile ceasefire with the Turkey-backed group, which was brokered with the help of the United States on Tuesday.

Fighting has continued elsewhere, however. The SDF said that its forces were repelling attacks near the Tishreen dam southeast of Manbij on Thursday. It said that “fierce clashes continue amid fears for the dam – as a result of intensive bombardment by Turkish warplanes, tanks, and mercenaries,” the term the SDF uses to describe Turkish-backed groups.

The US has been concerned that the battles in northern Syrian could imperil efforts to ensure that the Islamic State terror organization does not find a foothold in the region.

Four days after Syrian president Bashar al-Assad fled the country for Russia, neither him nor any of his entourage have been spotted in the capital.

One Moscow neighborhood seems like a possible landing spot for the former dictator: the Moscow City area, the financial district of the Russian capital, with its glitzy, sprawling skyscrapers, home to the headquarters of many of Russia’s large banks, as well as high-end residential buildings and luxury apartment complexes.

A 2019 investigation by the anti-corruption organization, Global Witness, found that members of Assad’s extended family had bought at least 19 apartments worth around 40 million dollars in the Moscow City area. Neither the Assad family nor Russian authorities are known to have ever commented on the on the purchase.

It is not clear whether Assad is staying in any of these apartments or elsewhere in Russia, but his family has had ties to the Russian capital for years. His eldest son Hafez, who carries the same first name as Bashar’s father and founder of the Syrian Arab Republic, has been studying at the Moscow State University whose campus is in a bombastic Stalin-era building atop an area named Sparrow Hills.

CNN found Hafez al-Assad doctoral dissertation on the website of the Russian ministry for science and higher education. The title of the known mathematics buff’s work is: “Arithmetic Issues of Polynomials in Algebraic Number Fields.” It was submitted in late October for a PhD in Physics and Mathematics.

According to the document, Hafez al-Assad defended his thesis on November 29, 2024, the day rebel forces stormed Syria’s second largest city, Aleppo, ringing in the lighting-fast demise of the Assad family’s more than 50 year rule over Syria.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, center left, meets with Jordan's King Abdullah in Aqaba, Jordan on December 12.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken discussed the US’ support for “an inclusive transition” to a new government in Syria in a meeting with Jordanian King Abdullah II Thursday.

The meeting in the coastal city of Aqaba comes days after the shocking collapse of the Assad regime and as the international community grapples with how to respond.

Blinken, according to a State Department readout, “reiterated the importance of all actors in Syria respecting human rights; upholding international law; taking all precautions to protect civilians, including members of minority groups; facilitating humanitarian access across Syria; preventing Syria from being used as a base for terrorism or posing a threat to its neighbors; and ensuring that any chemical weapons stockpiles are secured and safely destroyed.”

Blinken and Abdullah also discussed Gaza and “the urgent need to conclude a ceasefire that secures the release of all hostages.”

“The Secretary expressed his appreciation for Jordan’s continued leadership in providing life-saving humanitarian assistance to Palestinian civilians in Gaza,” the readout said.