Category World News

A year ago, the United States was offering a $10m reward for the arrest of the commander of a Syrian armed group, previously linked to al-Qaeda.

Yet on Monday, President Donald Trump hosted him at the White House.

As Syria’s leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa has positioned his country as a regional player – formally joining the global coalition against ISIL (ISIS).

Trump has also suggested he wants al-Sharaa to join the Abraham Accords.

However, the Israeli military is carrying out air strikes on Syria.

So, how might the new US-Syria relationship reshape power dynamics in the Middle East?

Presenter: Adrian Finighan

Guests:

Haid Haid — Senior non-resident fellow at Arab Reform Initiative

Robert Ford — Former US ambassador to Syria

United States President Donald Trump has called the looming end of the government shutdown a “big victory” after the Senate passed a bill to fund federal agencies.

Trump congratulated Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune on Tuesday for the soon-to-be-approved funding bill.

“Congratulations to you and to John and to everybody on a very big victory,” Trump said, addressing Johnson at a Veterans Day event.

“We’re opening up our country — should have never been closed.”

The US president’s comments signal that he views the shutdown crisis as a political win for his Republican Party, which is set to end the budgeting impasse in Congress without meeting the Democrats’ key demand: extending healthcare subsidies.

The Senate passed the funding bill late on Monday in a 60-40 vote that saw eight members of the Democratic caucus backing the proposal.

The Republican-controlled House of Representatives is expected to pass the budget in the coming days to end the shutdown, which has been the longest in US history. Assuming the House approves the bill, it will then go to Trump’s desk, and the president is expected to sign it into law.

In the US system, Congress is tasked with funding the government.

If lawmakers fail to pass a budget, the federal government goes into shutdown mode, where it stops paying most employees and sends non-essential workers home.

The current shutdown started on October 1.

Republicans control the House, Senate and White House, but their narrow majority in the Senate had previously prevented them from passing a continuing resolution to keep the government funded.

In the 100-seat Senate, major legislation must generally be passed with at least 60 votes to overcome the filibuster, a legislative procedure that allows the minority party to block bills it opposes.

The Democratic caucus holds 47 seats in the chamber, which allowed it to successfully wield the filibuster until this week’s divisive vote.

Until Monday, Democrats had largely been united in opposition to the Republicans’ funding bill. They had previously maintained they would only approve government funding if the bill included provisions to extend healthcare subsidies under the Affordable Care Act, which are set to expire at the end of the year.

Those subsidies, Democrats argued, help millions of Americans afford their medical insurance.

But Trump had threatened to ramp up the pressure against Democrats by cutting programmes he associated with their party.

During the shutdown, for example, Trump tried to withhold food benefits for low-income families – a policy that is being challenged in the courts.

The shutdown crisis has also led to flight delays and cancellations across the country due to a shortage of available air traffic controllers, who have been working without pay.

Monday’s Senate vote paved the way for a resolution to the crisis. But it has sparked infighting amongst Democrats, with segments of the party voicing disappointment with senators who backed the bill.

The issue has also intensified criticism against Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who voted against the proposal but failed to keep his caucus united in opposition to it.

“Sen. Schumer has failed to meet this moment and is out of touch with the American people. The Democratic Party needs leaders who fight and deliver for working people,” Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib said in a social media post on Monday.

“Schumer should step down.”

Senator John Fetterman, one of the most conservative Democrats in the Senate, defended his vote on Tuesday.

Yemen’s Houthi rebels seem to have indirectly confirmed they have stopped their attacks on Israel and shipping in the Red Sea as the US-brokered ceasefire in Gaza continues to hold.

The Houthis have carried out a military campaign of attacking ships through the Red Sea corridor in what they describe as solidarity with Palestinians amid Israel’s war on Gaza.

The group has launched numerous attacks on vessels in the Red Sea since late 2023, targeting ships they deem linked to Israel or its supporters.

However, in an undated letter to Hamas’s Qassam Brigades, recently published online, the Houthis have indicated that they have halted their attacks. The group has not formally announced it has ceased attacking ships in the region.

“We are closely monitoring developments and declare that if the enemy resumes its aggression against Gaza, we will return to our military operations deep inside the Zionist entity [Israel], and we will reinstate the ban on Israeli navigation in the Red and Arabian Seas,” the letter from Yusuf Hassan al-Madani, the Houthi armed forces’ chief of staff, reads.

A shaky United States-brokered ceasefire took effect in Gaza on October 10. Israel has repeatedly violated the brokered deal, killing more than 240 Palestinians in continued strikes on Gaza. Israel’s war on Gaza has killed at least 69,182 Palestinians and wounded more than 170,700 since October 2023. A total of 1,139 people were killed in Israel during the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led attacks, and about 200 were taken captive.

The Houthis’ maritime campaign has killed at least nine mariners and seen four ships sunk, disrupting shipping in the Red Sea, through which about $1 trillion of goods passed each year before the war.

The attacks greatly disrupted transits through Egypt’s Suez Canal, which links the Red Sea to the Mediterranean. The canal remains one of the top providers of hard currency for Egypt, providing it $10bn in 2023 as its wider economy struggles. The International Monetary Fund in July said the Houthi attacks “reduced foreign exchange inflows from the Suez Canal by $6bn in 2024”.

More recently, Yemen’s Houthi authorities detained dozens of United Nations employees after raiding a UN-run facility in the capital Sanaa, the UN confirmed in late October. The Houthis have alleged that the detained UN staff have spied for Israel or had links to an Israeli air strike that killed Yemen’s prime minister, without providing much evidence. The UN has strenuously denied the accusations.

The UN said at the end of October that a total of 36 UN employees were arrested after Israel’s attack. It says that at least 59 UN personnel are being held by the group.

On October 31, Houthi officials said the government would put dozens of the detained UN staff – who are Yemenis and could face the death penalty under the nation’s laws – on trial.