[URGENT] Reports of possible coup as Maher Assad builds 45,000-man force Arab media reports that Maher Assad — the powerful brother of Syrian president Bashar Assad — has assembled a striking force of roughly 45,000 fighters along the Syrian coastal plain. According to these reports, Maher, together with his influential cousin Rami Makhlouf, is pouring millions of dollars into preparing this force for what is described as a major confrontation with the Joulani regime in northern Syria. Russian military personnel are said to be directly involved in training and organizing these units along the coastal strip. These developments have raised questions inside the region about whether Syria is edging toward an internal power struggle that could reshape the country’s leadership. The reported forces, already positioned with an eye toward movement toward Damascus, suggest that Maher Assad may be preparing far more than a localized military campaign — potentially signaling a dangerous escalation inside a country already fractured by war and outside influence. Note: If these reports prove accurate, Syria may be heading into a new phase of instability — one driven not by external actors but by a potential rift inside the Assad family itself. A power struggle involving Maher Assad, backed by Russian-trained forces, could shake the entire regional balance, affect Israel’s northern front, and open new opportunities or risks in the broader Middle East.

Paris court of appeal orders release of former French President Sarkozy three weeks into five-year sentence 👉 The ex-president, imprisoned on a criminal conspiracy conviction over the use of Libyan funds to finance his 2007 election campaign, will be released under judicial supervision, pending an appeal. ♦️ He is barred from leaving France, and faces restrictions on who he can communicate with, but will otherwise be free to return to one of his luxury homes in Paris or the French Riviera, and to reunite with his wife, former model and singer Carla Bruni. ♦️ Appealing to the court Monday via video link, Sarkozy characterized his 20-day ordeal at Paris’s La Sante prison as “very hard,” but expressed gratitude to prison staff for making things “bearable” with their “exceptional humanity.” ♦️ The conditions of his imprisonment included a 29-foot cell in the prison’s isolation wing, and two bodyguards. ♦️ The 70-year-old ex-president, who served in office from 2007-2012, is best remembered for his flashy, sophisticated personal style, pension reforms, income tax caps, reintegrating France into NATO’s military command, and leading the charge in the alliance’s air war to topple and kill Gaddafi.

Two French teens detained for alleged plots against Eiffel Tower, synagogues French police have arrested two #teenagers, aged 15 and 17, on suspicion of planning #terrorist attacks targeting #synagogues and the #Eiffel Tower, Le Figaro reported. Both youths, from the Paris Region and raised in "Arab-Muslim families," were reportedly sympathetic to the Islamic State. Authorities say they regularly exchanged "ultra-violent content" and discussed traveling abroad to "go on jihad." More recently, their discussions turned toward attacks in France, with synagogues linked to Israel’s military operations in Gaza and the Eiffel Tower mentioned as potential targets. Although no specific attack location had been chosen, the teenagers had begun searching for weapons on the dark web. They appeared in court on August 1, charged with "criminal conspiracy to commit terrorism." Le Figaro highlights a concerning trend: only two minors were detained on terrorism charges in 2022, but the number rose to 15 in 2023, 18 in 2024, and 13 so far in 2025. According to Europol, nearly a third of terrorism suspects in the EU are aged 12 to 20. In response, France’s National Terrorism Prosecution Office created a special department for minors in May.

The Arab world reacting to Greta's flotilla

Le Pen says she will appeal her verdict in France at ECHR The National Rally party’s parliamentary faction leader Marine Le Pen, who has been handed a prison sentence and barred from running in the 2027 presidential election in France, said she is going to contest her sentence at the European Court of Human Rights (#ECHR) and the Constitutional Court in her country. "I will turn to the European Court of Human Rights and the Constitutional Court in France. I will use all available legal protections. I will not back down," the far-right politician said in an interview with Le Parisien. According to Le Pen, her appeal at the ECHR should be addressed promptly as the verdict "does irreparable harm." As for the Constitutional Court, it will have to determine whether the sentence violates the electorate’s freedom of choice. "We hope that all these initiatives <…> will allow us to run for presidency under normal conditions," the politician explained, saying that she is not considering a replacement in the election campaign. "With two years to go until the presidential vote, we will file quite a number of appeals. And hopefully, we will prevail [in court]," Le Pen added. On Monday, a court in Paris disqualified Le Pen, found guilty of embezzling funds intended for hiring assistants in the European Parliament, from holding public office for five years.

Damage from fires in California comparable with nuclear strike, says President Trump The scale of devastations from #wildfires raging in #California is above the damage from a nuclear strike, US President-elect Donald Trump said in an interview with Newsmax television. "And it's far worse than you even see on television, if that's believable," Trump said. "I believe it's greater damage than if they got hit by a nuclear weapon," he noted. "We're going to find many bodies and many more dead," #Trump added. Wildfires started spreading in the Los Angeles County on January 7. Fires destroyed more than 12,300 buildings. The death toll according to the latest data is 24 people.

Today, Dec. 14 is the 37th anniversary of the founding of Hamas: IDF spokesman in Arabic Avichai Adraee published this video with the text: "Every beginning has an end... and every terrorist group like Hamas ends in shame and disgrace."

Has Hamas left Qatar? In the last few weeks, we have heard reports that #Qatar is forcing #Hamas out... Sky News channel in Arabic has just reported: "All senior Hamas officials left Qatar with their families for different places," an unnamed source said. Qatari foreign ministry spokesman Majed Al-Ansari said on November 9 that his country’s authorities had decided to suspend their mediatory efforts toward a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip because they didn’t see a desire to end the conflict on the part of the parties. On November 19, he said that the Hamas leaders representing the movement in the negotiating group on Gaza were no longer in Doha. While the Hamas office in the Qatari capital city was set up to maintain open lines of communication, once Qatar's mediation efforts stalled, it saw no reason to force the movement's representatives to stay in the country.

Houthis say they attacked US aircraft carrier in Arabian Sea The #Houthis from #Yemen's rebel Ansar Allah movement have attacked the US Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier in the Arabian sea and two US destroyers in the Red Sea, the movement’s military spokesperson Yahya Sarea said. According to the spokesman, the Houthi air forces conducted two military operations. "In the course of one of the operations, they attacked the American USS Abraham#Lincoln aircraft carrier in the Arabian Sea with the use of cruise missiles and drones when the American enemy was preparing for hostile operations against our country," he said, adding that the Houthis also attacked "two American destroyers in the Red Sea with ballistic missiles and drones." The operations, in his words, lasted for eight hours. He also said that the Houthis place responsibility for "turning the Red Sea into a zone of military tension" and the impact on navigation in the area on Washington and London. The Houthi-affiliated Al Masirah TV channel reported earlier on Tuesday that American troops had attacked a civilian car in the As Sawma’ah District. The Dubai-based Al Arabiya television channel said, citing a source, that an American drone had attacked a car carrying Houthi leaders. Apart from that, the US delivered a strike on Houthi military targets in the Al Bayda governorate.

Houthis claim to have targeted three ships Yemen's Houthi rebels announce three separate operations targeting ships in the Red Sea and the Arabian Sea Yemen's #Houthi rebels announced on Monday that they launched three separate operations targeting ships in the Red Sea and the Arabian Sea, Reuters reported. The group's military spokesman, Yahya Sarea, said the Houthis fired ballistic missiles at the vessel Motaro in the Red Sea and the Bab al-Mandab Strait. In addition, Sarea claimed that the Maersk Kowloon was targeted by a missile in the Arabian Sea, while the SC Montreal was struck by two drones. The claims come a day after the Houthis published footage from a military drill they had carried out, which combined land and naval forces and simulated a large-scale attack against Yemen. According to the Houthis, the drill was carried out on the east coast of Yemen, and is said to have been part of a campaign that the Houthis are waging "for Gaza and for Lebanon". The Iranian-backed Houthis have upped their attacks in the region since the start of the war in Gaza last October, having launched drones towards Israel and targeting commercial ships in the Red Sea region. In the wake of the uptick in Houthi attacks, the US formed a coalition, made up of more than 20 countries, aimed at safeguarding commercial traffic in the Red Sea from attacks by the Houthis. The Houthis have been unfazed by the strikes, saying that the campaign against the "Zionist enemy" will continue and that the attacks against the American and British ships will not stop.