Thursday

December 19, 2024

Armed conflicts and attacks

Syrian civil war

Fall of the Assad regime

The Baniyas Refinery, Syria’s largest oil refinery, stops operating after ceasing to receive the crude oil from Iran that previously made up the majority of the country’s input. (Financial Times)

Deir ez-Zor offensive, Eastern Syria insurgency

Iraqi foreign minister Fuad Hussein warns that ISIS cells in Syria have begun reorganizing and taking new land following the collapse of the Syrian Armed Forces and subsequent abandonment of weapons depots. (Asharq News)

Operation Dawn of Freedom, Turkish involvement in the Syrian civil war

2024 Syrian opposition offensives

Ahmed al-Sharaa, the emir of Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham, makes an announcement claiming that the country is exhausted by perpetual warfare and is no longer a threat to its neighbors or the Western world. (BBC News)

The Military Operations Command forces take control of several towns in Raqqah Governorate, Syria. (SOHR)

Iraq announces the repatriation of members of the Syrian Armed Forces who fled after the fall of the Assad regime through the Al-Qa'im border crossing, back to Syria. (Al Arabiya)

Russian intervention in the Syrian civil war

Satellite imagery reveals that Russian forces are mobilizing heavy planes at Khmeimim Air Base in Latakia Governorate and are also mobilizing ships at Tartus naval base, indicating a potential withdrawal. (BBC News)

Abdul Hamid Dbeibah, the Prime Minister of the Tripoli-based Government of National Unity of Libya, denounces the entry of Russian forces from Syria into the eastern part of Libya. (The Libya Observer)

Russian president Vladimir Putin says that Russia helped evacuate 4,000 Iranian fighters from Syria. (Anadolu Agency)

Prosecution of Syrian civil war criminals

The Syrian Interim Government announces that they have begun preparing lists of people from the former regime who were involved in war crimes, torture, and murder. (The Jerusalem Post)

Red Sea crisis

The United States Department of the Treasury announces sanctions on the governor of the Central Bank of Yemen in Sanaa, Yemen, and several Houthi officials and associated companies and vessels, accusing them of trafficking dual-use weapon components and Iranian petroleum to the Houthis. (Al Jazeera) (JNS)

December 2024 Israeli airstrikes in Yemen

Israel carries out a series of airstrikes against the Houthis in western Yemen, damaging the Ras Isa oil facility, the port of as-Salif and several power stations in Sanaa, and killing at least nine people. (Al Jazeera)

Israel–Hamas war

Russian invasion of Ukraine

2024 Parliament of Abkhazia shooting

A lawmaker is killed and another is injured in a shooting inside the Parliament in Sukhumi, Abkhazia. The perpetrator, identified as MP and former Sukhumi mayor Adgur Kharazia, flees the scene. (Al Jazeera)

Mexican drug war

Two soldiers are killed after an explosion caused by a improvised landmine at a drug laboratory in Michoacán, Mexico. Three days earlier, two other soldiers were killed and three more injured during a similiar incident in Michoacán. (AP)

Disasters and accidents

2024–25 South-West Indian Ocean cyclone season

The death toll from Cyclone Chido in Mozambique increase to 73, including 66 in Cabo Delgado Province. (Al Jazeera)

European migrant crisis

A vessel carrying approximately 80 migrants heading for Spain sinks in Moroccan waters, leaving 70 people missing and eleven survivors rescued. (Le Monde)

Fire at the Central Warehouse [zh]

Nine people are killed during a fire at a PX Mart warehouse building under construction in Taichung, Taiwan. (AP)