DAMASCUS  –  The first commercial flight in Syria since the toppling of longtime President Bashar al-Assad earlier this month has taken off from Damascus airport. The flight landed in Aleppo, in the country’s north, on Wednesday with 43 people on board including a group of journalists. Pro-Assad forces abandoned the airport in the capital on December 8 as opposition fighters closed in on the city following a lightning offensive that began on November 27. Since then, no flights had taken off or landed due to security reasons.

Earlier this week, airport staff painted the pro-opposition three-star flag on aeroplanes, a symbol of the 2011 uprising now adopted by the transitional authorities. Inside the terminal, the new flag has also replaced the one associated with the government of al-Assad, who fled to Russia. An airport official told the AFP news agency on condition of anonymity that international flights would resume on December 24, following maintenance work. Meanwhile, neighbouring Jordan has reopened the Jaber border crossing with for trade, resuming the flow of goods and freight traffic between the two countries.

More than 13 years after a brutal crackdown on antigovernment protests morphed into a multisided war that killed hundreds of thousands and displaced millions, Syria is struggling to get back on its feet as it comes to terms with the scars of torture, disappearances and summary executions. The group at the helm of Syria’s new ruling coalition, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), has sought to keep its institutions going and kickstart its economy. Once rooted in Syria’s branch of al-Qaeda and designated a “terrorist” organisation by several Western governments, HTS has softened its rhetoric and pledged to protect the nation’s diverse religious and ethnic communities. While the new caretaker administration in Damascus has set out few details on its thinking for the next steps for the country, newly appointed Prime Minister Mohammed al-Bashir, who formerly led an HTS-affiliated government in Idlib province, has said he will remain in office until March.

On Wednesday, a day after meeting HTS leader Ahmed al-Sharaa in Damascus, United Nations Special Envoy Geir Pedersen called for “free and fair elections” in Syria after the transition and urgent humanitarian assistance for the country. Pedersen, who last Tuesday warned that the war has not yet ended, told reporters in Damascus that “there is a lot of hope that we can now see the beginning of a new Syria”. He also expressed hope for a “political solution” in the Kurdish-held northeast, where the US-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) are battling Turkish-backed groups who have captured several Kurdish towns since the offensive began in the rest of the country last month. Speaking to AFP, HTS military chief Murhaf Abu Qasra said Kurdish-held areas would be integrated under the country’s new leadership, adding that the group rejects federalism and that “Syria will not be divided.” “The Kurdish people are one of the components of the Syrian people … Syria will not be divided and there will be no federal entities,” he said. Abu Qasra, known by his nom de guerre Abu Hassan al-Hamawi, also said the group would be “the first” to dissolve its armed wing and integrate into the armed forces. (Al Jazeera)

Photo: Ground personnel walk on the tarmac as a Syrian  Air aircraft taxis ahead of take off to the city of Aleppo, at Damascus international airport. (AFP)

USA – Police said a student who opened fire killing two people at a private Christian school in Madison, Wisconsin, has been  identified as a 15-year-old girl, who was also dead. The girl also wounded six others in the shooting at Abundant Life Christian School, including two students who were in critical condition, Madison Police Chief Shon Barnes said.

Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers has ordered flags to be flown at half-staff in honour of the shooting victims. “Kathy and I join the people of Wisconsin in praying for the families and loved ones of those whose lives were so senselessly taken and for the educators, staff, and the entire Abundant Life school community as they grapple with the grief, trauma, and loss of this gut-wrenching tragedy,” Evers said in a statement. “We are also praying and hoping all those injured survive and recover.” The governor’s order began Monday and ends at sunset on Sunday.

The website for the anti-violence organisation Everytown for Gun Safety shows that there have been at least 202 incidents of gunfire on school grounds, resulting in 56 deaths and 147 injuries, in 2024. That data doesn’t include the latest shooting in Madison. The deadliest school shooting in 2024 happened in September at Apalachee High School in Georgia. Last year, 45 people died in 158 school shootings, the Everytown for Gun Safety website shows. Sixty-seven people died in 181 school shootings in 2022, according to the data.

Firearms were the leading cause of death among children in 2020 and 2021, according to KFF, a nonprofit that researches health care issues. Abundant Life Christian School is nondenominational and has about 420 students from pre-kindergarten through high school, according to Barbara Wiers, director of elementary and school relations for Abundant Life Christian School. She said at a news briefing Monday afternoon that the school does not have metal detectors but uses other security measures including cameras. She also said guns are not allowed on campus and that the school regularly practices safety routines. (Jamaica Gleaner)

Photo: Emergency vehicles are parked outside the Abundant Life Christian School in Madison, Wisconsin, following a shooting. (AP)

UKRAINE – North Korean troops have been killed fighting Ukrainian forces in Russia’s Kursk border region, the US has said. These would be the first reported casualties since it emerged in October that North Korea had sent around 10,000 troops to reinforce Russia’s war effort. Ukraine’s military intelligence agency, the GUR, has also said at least 30 North Korean troops had been killed or wounded in fighting over the weekend. The BBC has not independently verified the claims.

The North Korean troops, none of whom will have any previous combat experience, are believed to have spent their first weeks in Russia in training and then in support roles. On Saturday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russian had begun to use a “significant number” in its assaults in Kursk, part of which Ukraine has occupied since launching a surprise incursion in August. Speaking to reporters on Monday, Pentagon press secretary Major General Pat Ryder said the US believed North Korean soldiers had “engaged in combat in Kursk alongside Russian forces” and “suffered casualties, both killed and wounded”. He did not give specific numbers, but said the troops had been in combat since “a little over a week ago”.

He added it appeared the North Koreans were being used in infantry roles and that their involvement was thought so far to be limited to Kursk, implying that they have not been deployed in Ukraine itself. (BBC)

Photo: North Korean soldiers march during a mass rally in capital Pyongyang. (Getty Images)

Sara Sharif’s father and stepmother have been sentenced to life in prison for her murder after subjecting her to years of ‘horrific suffering’. The 10-year-old schoolgirl suffered ‘unimaginable pain’ during more than two years of abuse and was ultimately tortured to death by her father Urfan Sharif, 43, and stepmother Beinash Batool, 30.  Mr Justice Cavanagh began his sentencing remarks by describing the degree of cruelty shown towards Sara as ‘inconceivable’, and jailed Sharif to a minimum term of 40 years, Batool to 33 years and Malik to 16 years in prison.

He said Sharif was mainly responsible as Sara’s father while Batool and Malik had not shown any remorse, as he told the court: ‘This poor child was battered with severe force, again and again’ and she was treated as ‘the family servant despite her young age’. Sara was hooded, bitten, burned and eventually beaten to death during a campaign of abuse before her body was found with at least 71 injuries at the family’s home in Woking, Surrey, last year – including a broken neck. Sharif and Batool were found guilty of murder last Wednesday, while her uncle, Faisal Malik, 29, was convicted of causing or allowing a child’s death. Sara was injured with a variety of weapons including being scalded with boiling liquid when she was restrained, being beaten with a cricket bat, being hit with a metal pole broken off from a children’s high chair and being burned with an iron. ‘The abuse – which for anyone else would be exceptional – had become normalised for this little girl and you persuaded her that she deserved it,’ the judge said. (Dailymail)

Photo: Sara Sharif, 10, suffered ‘unimaginable pain’ during more than two years of abuse and was ultimately tortured to death.