Syria leader to miss Arab summit in Iraq: diplomatic source

TRIPOLI: Libyan Prime Minister Abdulhamid Al-Dbeibah said on Saturday that eliminating militias is an “ongoing project,” as a ceasefire after deadly clashes this week remained in place.
“We will not spare anyone who continues to engage in corruption or extortion. Our goal is to create a Libya free of militias and corruption,” Dbeibah said in a televised speech.
Dbeibah is the country’s internationally recognized leader in the west, based in Tripoli.
After Dbeibah on Tuesday ordered the armed groups to be dismantled, Tripoli was rocked by its fiercest clashes in years between two armed groups. The clashes killed at least eight civilians, according to the United Nations.
The government announced a ceasefire on Wednesday.
It followed Monday’s killing of major militia chief Abdulghani Kikli, widely known as Ghaniwa, and the sudden defeat of his Stabilization Support Apparatus group by factions aligned with Dbeibah.
SSA is under the Presidential Council that came to power in 2021 with the Government of National Unity of Dbeibah through a United Nations-backed process.
SSA was based in the densely populated Abu Salim neighborhood.
GNU’s Interior Ministry said in a statement that nine decomposed corpses were found in a morgue refrigerator in Abu Salim-based Al-Khadra hospital. It said SSA never reported them to authorities. The PM’s media office posted a video of Dbeibah greeting the security force protecting the Prime Ministry Building. It said he later received delegations from elders to discuss Tripoli’s situation and what he called “successful security operation in Abu Salim.”
“The Prime Minister stressed that this operation falls within the state’s fixed vision to eliminate armed formations outside the police and army institutions,” the media office said.
On Friday, at least three ministers resigned in sympathy with hundreds of protesters who took to the streets calling for Dbeibah’s ouster.
Dbeibah did not comment on their resignations. “The protests are annoying, but I’ve put up with them. I know some of them are real, but a lot of them are paid,” he said.
The United Nations Support Mission in Libya expressed concern on Friday about the escalation of violence in Tripoli, calling on parties to protect civilians and public property.
Libya has had little stability since a 2011 NATO-backed uprising ousted longtime autocrat Muammar Qaddafi. The country split in 2014 between rival eastern and western factions, though an outbreak of major warfare paused with a truce in 2020.
While eastern Libya has been dominated for a decade by commander Khalifa Haftar and his Libyan National Army, control in Tripoli and western Libya has been splintered among numerous armed factions.
A major energy exporter, Libya is also an important way station for migrants heading to Europe, while its conflict has drawn in foreign powers including Turkiye, Russia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates.
State-oil firm NOC said on Friday that its operations at oil facilities are proceeding as normal, with oil and gas exports operating regularly.

DAMASCUS: Syria on Saturday announced the formation of a national commission for missing persons and another for transitional justice, more than five months after the ouster of longtime ruler Bashar Assad.
Syria’s new authorities have pledged justice for victims of atrocities committed under Assad’s rule, and a five-year transitional constitution signed in March provided for the formation of a transitional justice commission.
The fate of tens of thousands of detainees and others who went missing remains one of the most harrowing legacies of Syria’s conflict, which erupted in 2011 when Assad’s forces brutally repressed anti-government protests, triggering more than a decade of war.
A decree signed by interim President Ahmed Al-Sharaa and released by the presidency announced the formation of an independent “national commission for missing persons.”
The body is tasked with “researching and uncovering the fate of the missing and forcibly disappeared, documenting cases, establishing a national database and providing legal and humanitarian support to their families.”
A separate decree announced the formation of a national commission for transitional justice to “uncover the truth about the grave violations caused by the former regime.”
That commission should hold those responsible to account “in coordination with the relevant authorities, remedy the harm to victims, and firmly establish the principles of non-recurrence and national reconciliation,” according to the announcement.
The decree noted “the need to achieve transitional justice as a fundamental pillar for building a state of law, guaranteeing victims’ rights and achieving comprehensive national reconciliation.”
Both bodies will have “financial and administrative independence” and act over all of Syrian territory, according to the decrees signed by Sharaa.
In December, an Islamist-led coalition toppled Assad after five decades of his family’s iron-fisted rule and nearly 14 years of brutal war that killed more than half a million people and displaced millions more.
Tens of thousands of people were detained and tortured in the country’s jails, while Assad has been accused of using chemical weapons against his own people.
Rights groups, activists and the international community have repeatedly emphasized the importance of transitional justice in the war-torn country.
In March, Sharaa signed into force a constitutional declaration for a five-year transitional period.
It stipulated that during that period, a “transitional justice commission” would be formed to “determine the means for accountability, establish the facts, and provide justice to victims and survivors” of the former government’s misdeeds.
This week, prominent Syrian human rights lawyer Mazen Darwish told AFP that lasting peace in Syria depended on the country building a strong judicial system giving justice to the victims of all crimes committed during the Assad era.