ISRAEL – Israel has confirmed it is carrying out air strikes on Syria to target suspected chemical weapons and missile sites. Gideon Saar, the country’s foreign minister, said this was to stop weapons falling “into the hands of extremists”, following the overthrow of the Assad regime. Media reports suggest there have been dozens of Israeli air strikes in the past two days, including on a site in Damascus said to have been used for rocket development by Iranian scientists. The Israeli air strikes come as the UN’s chemical watchdog warns authorities in Syria to ensure that suspected stockpiles of chemical weapons are safe.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a UK-based monitoring group, said on Monday that the Israeli military had conducted overnight strikes on multiple locations spanning coastal and southern Syria. “Since the initial hours after the announcement of the fall of the former regime, Israel began launching intensive air strikes, deliberately destroying weapons and ammunitions depots,” it said. According to the UN’s chemical watchdog, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), a chemical weapon is a chemical used to cause intentional death or harm through its toxic properties, external. The use of chemical weapons is prohibited under international humanitarian law regardless of the presence of a valid military target, as the effects of such weapons are indiscriminate by nature. It is not known where or how many chemical weapons Syria has, but former President Bashar al-Assad is believed to have kept stockpiles and that the declaration he had made was incomplete. (BBC)

Photo: Israeli troops on the Syrian side of the border near the Druze village of Majdal Shams, in the Golan Heights. (EPA)

Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has travelled to Malta for a European security summit, marking his first visit to an EU state since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. His Ukrainian counterpart Andriy Sybiga, who is also attending the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe OSCE meeting, walked out of the hall ahead of Lavrov’s remarks, according to the country’s foreign ministry.Lavrov’s attendance has proven controversial, with Poland’s foreign minister refusing to meet him and Sybiga branding the diplomat a “war criminal

The Russian foreign minister accused the West of fuelling a new Cold War “with a much greater risk of a transition to a hot one”.Sybiga said Russia’s involvement in the OSCE was contrary to the organisation’s aims, describing it as the “biggest threat to our common security”.US Secretary of State Antony Blinken also attended. He accused Russia of escalating the war in Ukraine and spreading a “tsunami of misinformation

“This is not about and has never been about Russia’s security. This is about Mr Putin’s imperial project to erase Ukraine from the map.”Blinken and Lavrov, who have had limited interaction since the war in Ukraine began, are not scheduled to meet at the summit.Kyiv boycotted last year’s OSCE meeting in North Macedonia, which is not an EU member, due to Lavrov’s attendance and has previously called for Russia’s expulsion from the group.Moscow has grown increasingly critical of the OSCE, which was set up to ease east-west tensions during the Cold War and aims to prevent conflict and manage crises in Europe.The forum of 57 states meets to discuss security issues on the continent and carries out practical security work, including sending observers to conflicts and elections globally.

Last year, Lavrov claimed the OSCE was “being turned into an appendage of Nato and the European Union”, while Russia has hampered the group’s ability to function in recent years by vetoing several major decisions.Moscow voted to suspend its involvement in its parliamentary assembly earlier this year, calling it anti-Russian and discriminatory.Ahead of this week’s summit, Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Lavrov would use the occasion to criticise the OSCE’s “institutional crisis”.She said the OSCE had been “Ukrainised” and accused Western states of “using this platform for their own interests”.Zakharova also wrote on Telegram that Malta had annulled her visa to accompany Lavrov to the meeting.  (BBC)

SYRIA – Syria’s prime minister said Monday that most cabinet ministers are still working from offices in Damascus after rebels entered the capital over the weekend and overthrew President Bashar Assad. Streams of refugees crossed in from neighbouring countries, hoping for a more peaceful future.

But there were already signs of the difficulties ahead for the rebel alliance now in control of much of the country, which is led by a former senior al-Qaida militant who severed ties with the extremist group years ago and has promised representative government and religious tolerance. The rebel command said Monday they would not tell women how to dress. Israel said it is carrying out airstrikes on suspected chemical weapons sites and long-range rockets to keep them from falling into the hands of extremists. Israel has also seized a buffer zone inside Syria after Syrian troops withdrew. In northern Syria, Turkey said allied opposition forces seized the town of Manbij from Kurdish-led forces backed by the United States, a reminder that even after Assad’s departure to Russia the country remains split among armed groups that have fought in the past. (Jamaica-Gleaner)

Photo: Syrian opposition fighters man a checkpoint in Damascus, Syria. (AP)

PENNSYLVANIA – Police are questioning a man in Altoona, Pennsylvania, in connection with the fatal shooting nearly a week ago of a top US health care executive on a busy New York City street, two law enforcement officials familiar with the matter tell CNN. Working off of a tip, police stopped a person traveling by bus and recovered a suppressor – a device that muffles the sound of a firearm – and a number of false IDs, one official added. That man is now in custody and being questioned.

The development comes amid an intense search for whoever fatally shot UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. Authorities have known what the suspect looks like but not who or where he is. Through glimpses of his unmasked face, his movements through the country’s largest city and the belongings police say he discarded, he seems almost familiar but remains a mystery.

The public, too, has seen the suspect in surveillance photos and videos – including one with him pointing the weapon at Thompson’s back – and as he continues to evade capture in the December 4 killing outside a Midtown Manhattan hotel. The suspect was believed to have left New York City on an interstate bus, police officials said, after video cameras captured him entering the George Washington Bridge Bus Station on 178th Street but not leaving. (CNN)