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At least 10 civilians dead in suspected Jordanian air raids in Syria
An estimated 10 civilians have been killed in air strikes targeting the neighbouring towns of Arman and Malh in the southeast Syrian province of Sweida, according to local media.
Jordanian forces are believed to be behind Thursday’s attacks, though its government has yet to confirm any involvement.
Sweida 24, a news platform based in its namesake city, said warplanes carried out simultaneous strikes on residential neighbourhoods after midnight local time (21:00 GMT).
The attack in Malh caused material damage to some houses. The second strike in Arman, however, collapsed two houses and killed at least 10 civilians, including four women and two girls, both under the age of five.
Jordan is thought to have carried out previous raids in Syria, mostly near the countries’ shared border, in an effort to disrupt weapons smuggling and drug-trafficking operations.
But inhabitants of the towns struck on Thursday questioned the choice of targets.
“What happened was a massacre against children and women,” Murad al-Abdullah, a resident of Arman, told Al Jazeera. “The air strikes that targeted the villages are far from being identified as fighting drug traffickers.”
Al-Abdullah said the bombing was not limited to houses of people suspected to be involved in drug trafficking. He noted other homes were damaged as well, terrorising villagers while they were asleep and causing needless civilian deaths.
“It is unreasonable for two girls who are no more than five years old to be involved in drug trafficking,” al-Abdullah said.
Tribes and residents of the villages near the Jordanian border issued separate statements this week disavowing any involvement in drug smuggling.
The statements also pledged to lend a hand to Jordan to eliminate criminal networks trafficking narcotics and other drugs across the border. In turn, they asked Jordan to suspend its bombings of civilian sites.
The spiritual leader of the Druze religious group in Syria, Sheikh Hikmat al-Hajri, appealed to Jordan to prevent further civilian bloodshed.
“The attacks should be heavily focused towards the smugglers and their supporters exclusively,” al-Hajri said in a public statement.
Al-Abdullah, the Arman resident, also called on Jordan to collaborate with Syrian locals to stop the trafficking operations.
“We are a society that does not accept the manufacture or trade of drugs, and the Jordanian government should have communicated with our elders to cooperate in combating drug traffickers, instead of bombing residential neighbourhoods,” al-Abdullah said.
Suspected attacks aimed at drug-trafficking operations
Thursday’s attack is believed to be the third time this year that Jordanian planes have carried out air raids on Syrian territory.
A previous attack occurred on January 9, resulting in the deaths of three people in the countryside of Sweida, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a London-based rights monitor.
The Observatory said that five smugglers were also killed in a border attack on January 7. Fighting that day took place sporadically over 10 hours.
By the end of the raid, Jordanian forces had arrested 15 suspects. They also claimed to have recovered 627,000 pills of Captagon, an illicitly manufactured amphetamine, and 3.4kg of cannabis.
“What Jordan is doing can certainly delay drug-smuggling operations but unfortunately, cannot stop them completely. The border with Syria is 375km (233 miles) long, and smuggling operations are carried out by professional groups, not some random individuals carrying out bags of drugs to cross the border,” said Essam al-Zoubi, a lawyer and human rights activist.
Drug enforcement officials in the United States and other Western countries have said that war-torn Syria has become a major hub in the Middle East for the drug trade.
The country, for instance, has become the primary manufacturer for Captagon, a multibillion-dollar business. Experts have said smugglers are using Jordan as a route through which Syrian drugs can reach the oil-rich Gulf states.
Al-Zoubi and other human rights advocates have warned the Syrian government itself is involved in the drug trade, in an effort to shore up its war-drained finances.
Reports indicated that the Fourth Armoured Division of the Syrian Army has played a role in overseeing the country’s drug operations, alongside the Iran-backed armed group Hezbollah, an ally of the Syrian government.
“The officials responsible for drug smuggling in Syria are Hezbollah of Lebanon, the Fourth Division, and the security apparatuses of the Syrian regime that control southern Syria,” al-Zoubi said.
Jordan and its allies have also taken other approaches to stopping the drug trade.
In March last year, for instance, the US Department of the Treasury imposed sanctions on six people, including two relatives of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, for their role in producing and trafficking Captagon. Some of those sanctioned had ties to Hezbollah as well.
But al-Zoubi warns that even targeted attacks on Syrian drug dealers will not be enough to stop the trade.
“It does not matter to the drug officials from Hezbollah or the Fourth Division if traders are killed, as the trades themselves will continue regardless of the people,” al-Zoubi said, pointing to an example in May 2023.
Jordanian planes, at the time, had carried out air raids in the Sweida countryside, targeting the house of one of the most famous drug traffickers in Syria, Marai al-Ramthan. He was ultimately killed in the attack.
But, al-Zoubi said, his death “did not limit drug trafficking but, in fact, increased it”. Other smugglers used his demise as an opportunity to expand their trade in his absence.
Omar Idlibi, director of the Doha office at the Harmoon Center for Contemporary Studies, said that geopolitical turmoil in the region has also allowed trafficking to flourish.
“Drug-smuggling operations to Jordan did not exist before 2018, that is, before the Syrian regime and its Iranian allies regained control of southern Syria from the opposition factions,” he told Al Jazeera.
Idlibi explained that the launch of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 has had a direct effect on the expanding drug operations.
As it focused on Ukraine, Russia withdrew some of its troops in Syria, allowing Iranian militias and Hezbollah forces to spread. Those groups then turned some of the Syrian army’s headquarters into logistical centres for the manufacture, transport and smuggling of drugs to Jordan.
Russia’s need for military equipment from Iran also prompted it to turn a blind eye to the drug-smuggling activity in Syria, Idlibi explained.
“Everyone knows that the Syrian regime and Iran are behind the terrorist activity on the Syrian-Jordanian border, and unless it is terminated from the source, it will continue at different rates,” Idlibi said.
Lebanon, rocket attack on Unifil base of the Italian contingent: no injuries
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As President Donald Trump continues to express anger at NATO European allies for their lack of help in the war with Iran, he’s making clear their behavior comes at a cost.
In the weeks during the war and since the ceasefire, the president has hit back not just with words but with definitive actions against several of those countries.
Germany
On Saturday, Trump said that he would withdraw more than the initial 5,000 U.S. troops from Germany as stated by the Pentagon, after Berlin’s leader denigrated the American effort to stop Iran’s regime from building a nuclear weapon.
TRUMP WEIGHS PULLING US TROOPS FROM GERMANY AMID CLASH WITH CHANCELLOR OVER IRAN WAR
President Donald Trump and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz meet in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, D.C., on March 3, 2026, to discuss issues including recent U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
A day earlier he said about Germany that “We’re gonna cut way down. We’re cutting a lot further than 5,000.” The Trump administration previously announced a contraction of 5,000 troops in Germany after the country’s Chancellor Friedrich Merz said Iran’s regime “humiliated” Trump.
In an apparent state of panic, Merz walked back his attack on Trump and his Iran strategy on Sunday. The chancellor wrote on X: “The United States is and will remain Germany‘s most important partner in the North Atlantic Alliance. We share a common goal: Iran must not be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons.”
Trump ratcheted up his troop reduction number against Germany amid his comments about downsizing U.S. boots on the ground in Spain and Italy because they failed to aid America in the war against Iran. The president’s anger at Western European countries has been simmering for weeks and could lead to profound changes in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
TRUMP CRITICIZES SPAIN AMID IRAN, NATO RIFT AS PM SANCHEZ FACES QUESTIONS OVER POLITICAL MOTIVES
Nile Gardiner, the director of the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom at The Heritage Foundation, told Fox News Digital, “The lack of support for the United States has been nothing less than treacherous. I think the president has the right to be outraged by the lack of support from key European allies.”
An Iranian flag is planted in the rubble of a police station, damaged in airstrikes on March 3, 2026, in Tehran, Iran. (Majid Saeedi/Getty Images)
He said, “There is a very deep-seated cultural appeasement in Europe toward the Iranian regime that goes back many decades, and a flat-out refusal to accept the reality of the immense dangers of a nuclear-armed Iran. European leaders are sleepwalking toward destruction with this perilous path they have taken.
TRUMP IS RIGHT ABOUT NATO’S WEAKNESS — THE REAL QUESTION IS HOW DOES AMERICA FIX IT
“The lack of support for the United States is how far Europe has gone toward losing its moral compass. Iran is a genocidal regime that threatens to wipe Israel off the map.” He noted that the Islamic Republic has killed huge numbers of its population.
Gardiner, a former advisor to Lady Margaret Thatcher said, “If you listen to European leaders, it’s as if the U.S. is the villain here.”
Merz, speaking last week in Marsberg, criticized the U.S. approach to Iran, saying Washington was being “humiliated by the Iranian leadership” and expressing hope the conflict would end “as quickly as possible.”
Gardiner said of Merz’s remarks, “Comments like these actually help the propaganda of the Iranian dictatorship. It is astonishing that a German chancellor would make these kinds of remarks at a time of war… and the German chancellor is giving comfort to the Iranian regime. It is disgusting.”
Numerous Fox News Digital press queries sent to Merz’s spokesman Stefan Kornelius were not returned.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez called the U.S. conflict with Iran “reckless” and “unjust.” (Yves Herman/Reuters)
Spain and Italy
Before his announcement on the troop withdrawal from Germany, and in response to a question about reducing U.S. troops in Spain and Italy, Trump responded, “I mean, they haven’t been exactly on board. Yeah, probably. Yeah, I probably will… Italy has not been of any help to us. And Spain has been horrible. Absolutely horrible.”
Spain’s socialist prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has taken a belligerent stand toward the U.S. and Israeli military campaign against the Iranian regime, forbidding the U.S. from using its military bases in Spain to refuel aircraft or prepare for military action. He has decried the campaign as illegal while staying quiet on the regime’s murder of thousands of protesters and its increased drive to produce ballistic missiles and acquire nuclear weapons-grade enriched uranium.
Gardiner said, “The Spanish have been the worst by a long way. At least the Germans and Italy have allowed the use of its own bases. The Spanish have refused to cooperate in any way with the war.”
Trump told the Italian daily Corriere della Sera last month about the country’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, “I’m shocked at her. I thought she had courage, but I was wrong.”
The Europe expert, Gardiner, sees a wide gulf between how mainly Western European countries and the United States view the preservation of Western civilization, freedom, democracy and liberty.
French President Emmanuel Macron listens to Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni during a working session with world leaders at the G7 summit in Borgo Egnazia, Italy, on June 13, 2024. (Andrew Medichini/AP)
“Europe has lost both its ability and its will to fight. The United States is clearly willing to fight to defend Western civilization and the free world. Much of Europe has given up on this, especially Western Europe. It is an appeasement mindset cojoined with weakness and pacifism and also a growing acceptance by European leaders of mass migration and Islamification.”
He added, “Europe has fundamentally changed over the last 20 years beyond recognition, and yet Europe’s ruling elites accept it seemingly as a fact, with some notable exceptions.”
France and the U.K.
Trump took the United Kingdom and France in March to task for their postion on the war against Iran.
“The Country of France wouldn’t let planes headed to Israel, loaded up with military supplies, fly over French territory,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
“France has been VERY UNHELPFUL with respect to the ‘Butcher of Iran,’ who has been successfully eliminated! The U.S.A. will REMEMBER!!!,” he wrote.
France’s President Emmanuel Macron welcomes Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer at the Elysee Presidential Palace in Paris on Feb. 17, 2025, before an informal summit of European leaders to discuss the situation in Ukraine and European security. (Ludovic Marin/AFP via Getty Images)
Trump also wrote, “All of those countries that can’t get jet fuel because of the Strait of Hormuz, like the United Kingdom, which refused to get involved in the decapitation of Iran, I have a suggestion for you.”
“Number 1, buy from the U.S., we have plenty, and Number 2, build up some delayed courage, go to the Strait, and just TAKE IT.”
“You’ll have to start learning how to fight for yourself, the U.S.A. won’t be there to help you anymore, just like you weren’t there for us. Iran has been, essentially, decimated. The hard part is done. Go get your own oil!”
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Gardiner said the crisis over the Iran war shows that Europe has surrendered. The big Western Europeans have embraced “defeatism,” and “they do not care. It is as simple as that. And future generations will have to pay the price for the course Europe is taking now,” he said.
Fox News’ Brittany Miller and Solly Boussidan contributed to this report.
Published on
Ukraine’s top negotiator Rustem Umerov will hold talks with US officials in Florida on Thursday on how to end the full-scale Russian invasion, Kyiv said on Thursday, amid stalled negotiations during the Iran war.
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“The Secretary of the National Security and Defence Council of Ukraine will hold a series of meetings today with envoys of the President of the United States,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky wrote in a post on X.
Zelenskyy said Kyiv had “defined the key tasks,” which includes discussing a potential prisoner exchange with Russia and security guarantees for a post-war Ukraine.
“Rustem and I discussed work with our European partners on Drone Deals. We are preparing the agreements reached at the highest level, as well as new steps in joint technological work,” Zelenskyy wrote.
US-mediated talks on ending Europe’s worst conflict since World War II have shown little progress since February, when Washington shifted focus to its war with Iran.
Umerov last met with US special envoy Steve Witkoff and President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner in Florida between 21-22 March.
Since returning to office, Trump has pushed Moscow and Kyiv to negotiate but months of talks have failed to bring the warring parties closer to an agreement to stop the fighting, triggered by Russia’s full-scale invasion four years ago.
The already stalled talks were put on the back burner from late February, when the US-Israeli air campaign against Iran began.
Even before the Middle East war, Russia and Ukraine remained at odds over the key issue of territory.
Ukraine has proposed freezing the conflict along the current front lines.
But Russia has rejected this, saying it wants the whole of the Donetsk region despite it being partly controlled by Ukraine, a demand Kyiv says is unacceptable.
Kremlin ceasefire
Meanwhile, the Kremlin said on Thursday that it would begin a two-day ceasefire with Ukraine starting at midnight that is meant to cover its patriotic 9 May parade, after ignoring a Ukrainian ceasefire earlier this week.
Moscow warned foreign diplomats in Kyiv that it will strike the Ukrainian capital if Ukraine targets its World War II victory parade.
“Yes, we are talking about the 8th and 9th of May,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, when asked if the ceasefire would come into effect from midnight.
Asked about the Ukrainian ceasefire on 6 May, a counter-offer by Kyiv which dismissed Moscow’s demand to stop fighting as “utter cynicism,” Peskov said, “There was no Russian reaction to this.”
The Kremlin ordered a scaled-back version this year, with no military hardware to be on display, over the fear it could be targeted by Ukraine.
Additional sources • AFP
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