UNICEF Gaza findings ‘completely shatters’ starvation claims against Israel, State Dept says

The Trump State Department has reacted to a new report by UNICEF on malnutrition in Gaza by saying it "completely shatters" the allegations that Israel deliberately starved civilians in the Hamas-run enclave.

The outcry of criticism comes as a report used by the United Nations and quoted by much of the world's media projected starvation in Gaza well into June.

Following Hamas’ invasion of southern Israel on Oct 7, 2023, that led to the deaths of some 1,200 people and the kidnapping of 251 Israeli and foreign nationals, the Jewish state invaded Gaza, which led to accusations of genocide and deliberate starvation tactics used against Gazans.

The UNICEF-led National Nutrition Cluster report from last month was able to reach 1,335 children under age 5 throughout 83% of the Gaza Strip to assess its risk of malnutrition. Malnutrition rates were determined by weight-for-height Z-score (WHZ) and mid-upper-arm circumference (MUAC). Using WHZ figures, rates ranged from 0.2% in Khan Younis and Rafah to 0.8% in Gaza City. MUAC measurements found malnutrition rates ranging from 1.5% in Gaza City to 1.9% in Deir Al-Balah.

About 17% of the population could not be surveyed due to security and operational constraints.

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A State Department spokesperson told Fox News Digital that "UNICEF’s latest findings demonstrate another example that completely shatters the countless false allegations against Israel of deliberate starvation of civilians in Gaza. There are U.N. entities, media outlets and NGOs that should retract and correct their politicized and baseless attacks on Israel – which has provided an unprecedented over 2 million tons of food into Gaza since the ceasefire."

The rates of malnutrition UNICEF documented are on par with, or substantially lower than, those in some neighboring countries. According to a post on X from the Israeli Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), acute malnutrition figures in the region range from 1.3% in Gaza, Lebanon, and Turkey to 2.3% in Jordan, 3.3% in Egypt, 12.2% in Syria, and 17.7% in Sudan.

UNICEF’s report has raised ire from onlookers who took issue with the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) statement that famine was "confirmed" in Gaza in August 2025.

The catalyst for the uproar was the IPC's warning from August 2025 that famine had reached Gaza Governorate. At that time, the IPC estimated that 'through June 2026, at least 132,000 children under 5 are expected to suffer from acute malnutrition,' including 41,000 severe cases where children would be 'at heightened risk of death.'"

The IPC is expected to release a full report on conditions in Gaza "in the coming days." Prior to releasing the report, they have assessed that the Gaza Strip would be in Phase 2, the "alert" phase for malnutrition, between July and December 2026. They state that "74,200 children aged 6–59 months will likely require treatment for acute malnutrition through April 2027, with more than 11,400 severe cases expected." 

UNICEF’s July report found that "very few confirmed nutrition-related deaths have been reported during treatment" in Gaza. The IPC did not respond to questions about UNICEF’s findings, or whether they stood by their prior claims that famine had been reached in Gaza.

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The State Department spokesperson added that "the United States, in coordination with Israel, have facilitated humanitarian assistance while taking important steps to prevent Hamas from diverting or looting the aid, providing more support to Gazans. The President has a bold and ambitious plan to rebuild Gaza, which is well underway through the efforts of the Board of Peace to facilitate disarming Hamas and ensure it is no longer a threat to Israel."

Andrew Fox, a senior fellow at the Henry Jackson Society who has closely studied the Gaza conflict, told Fox News Digital that "the new data shows that the allegations of famine in Gaza were pure hysteria." He said that while "certain small pockets of hunger occurred in Gaza, we now know this can only have been an issue of distribution. Once again, international organizations removed Hamas and their share of the blame for Gaza’s suffering from the conversation, stoking the anti-Israel narrative."

Prof. Aron Troen, director of the Nutrition and Brain Health Laboratory and teaches in the School of Nutrition Science and the School of Public Health at The Hebrew University in Jerusalem, told Fox News Digital that the UNICEF findings are "very, very good news." He said it was "remarkable that in an area which was very recently claimed to be experiencing not only famine, but a deliberate and imposed political famine, that the situation has gone to the point that the current measures, and at least some of them, right now are better than…other places in the Arab world."

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"It’s important to state that if one wishes to take seriously the efforts to identify humanitarian need and provide an adequate response, then you have to be just as open to the good news as to the bad news," Troen said. He further decried "narratives" surrounding the report "that serve political agendas." He said that if there were the possibility of "a gradual transfer of pragmatic agency to a Palestinian governance in the interests of two states, respect for borders, coexistence," that it "requires people to stop throwing around genocide, famine, and impugning one side or the other in order to gain political leverage."

Kurtis Cooper, Chief of Global Media at UNICEF, told Fox News Digital that "the recent nutrition survey measures conditions in mid-2026, more than nine months after the IPC confirmed famine in August 2025 and after a ceasefire and substantial scale-up in humanitarian assistance. It does not tell us what conditions were in August 2025, and it was never designed to."

Cooper said that "in terms of why the situation has improved, during the period covered by the August 2025 IPC analysis, programmes to detect and treat malnutrition were largely operating, but blanket supplementary feeding had largely ceased across Gaza because of severe access constraints and supply disruptions. Programme data show a similar trend: admissions for treatment of acute malnutrition peaked at nearly 17,000 children in August 2025 before falling to around 3,100 by May 2026."

Cooper did not answer questions about how WHZ rates measured in Gaza compare to those in other countries experiencing widespread human suffering.

In May, UNICEF reported that in Sudan, "almost 100,000 children were admitted for treatment for severe acute malnutrition" between January and March. UNICEF estimated that 825,000 children under five would experience severe acute malnutrition in Sudan in 2026.

Andrew Fox called on "leading organizations" to "offer a public and full retraction of their error-strewn papers." He explained that "their mistakes have paved the way for an explosion in global antisemitism, and these organizations must own their roles in that and make amends as loudly as possible."

According to the J7 Large Communities’ Task Force Against Antisemitism, 2025 was the deadliest year for antisemitic attacks around the world since 1994.

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UK ‘in free fall’ on free speech, expert warns as British MP brands Trump admin grant 'MAGA money meddling'

The U.S. Embassy in London is offering up to $500,000 in grants to bolster shared values between the United States and the United Kingdom, including freedom of speech, due process and limited government, but at least one British critic is rejecting the offered funding as "MAGA money meddling."

Liberal Democrat MP Lisa Smart framed the grant as "Trump’s MAGA money meddling in democracy," in a quote to The Guardian.

"We have a proud tradition of liberty and freedom of speech in this country," Smart added.

That tradition, according to free speech defenders, is under threat across the pond.

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"It is a true free speech disaster in the U.K., and they don't even seem to know what's happening," Greg Lukianoff, president of the nonpartisan Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), told Fox News Digital.

Lukianoff posited that the U.K.'s current attitude to free speech means it needs all the help that it can get.

"Whether the help is coming from JD Vance or Trump or maybe some future Democrat who sees the light on this stuff, the U.K. should be accepting help on freedom of speech because they are in crisis, and it's unsustainable," Lukianoff told Fox News Digital.

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The U.S. Embassy in London, in response to Smart's criticisms, noted that Liberal Democrats did not push back on Biden-era grants that could be viewed as political.

In response to the accusation that the U.S. is "meddling in British democracy," the U.S. embassy said in a statement to Fox News Digital, it "is mindful of such concerns, and has discontinued Biden-era public diplomacy spending on divisive ideological projects such as 'climate justice,' LGBTQ activism, and race-based hiring initiatives — none of which, to our recollection, raised such complaints from officials."

President Donald Trump's State Department as a whole is axing Biden-era guidelines that directed personnel to push a woke diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility (DEIA) agenda on foreign officials and governments, Fox News Digital has learned.

Meanwhile, the FIRE boss rejected the notion that foundational values like free speech are MAGA constructions.

"When it comes to the idea of these being fundamentally tainted ideas, that is very much a higher education, elite-educated concept," he told Fox News Digital.

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The U.K. has imposed a number of new laws restricting speech in the country in recent years, perhaps most notably the 2023 Online Safety Act, which gives the country's regulators the power to slap hefty fines on digital platforms if they don't enforce the U.K.'s increasingly stricter speech codes.

Lukianoff compared the U.K.'s new direction to the first Red Scare, the period in U.S. history in the early 1920s that saw thousands arrested on charges related to suspected communist ties.

"I always have to put this in context. In the first Red Scare in the United States — 1919 and 1920 — we arrested about 2,000 people per year, and that's bad. They're arresting around 12,000 a year in a country that's about 50% smaller than the U.S. was at the time. They are in free fall and also in complete denial of it," Lukianoff said.

Ahead of a House of Lords debate last year on arrests for online communications and free speech, the House of Lords Library cited a Times of London analysis that found more than 12,000 arrests in 2023 under two communications laws.

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Both the U.S. and U.K. allow authorities to prosecute threats of violence, but the U.K. has no direct equivalent to the First Amendment and also criminalizes certain communications deemed "grossly offensive."

The outsized number of arrests in the U.K., Lukianoff argued, don't "even include the large number of non-crime hate incidents or the stuff that they're currently trying to suppress, also in the United States, by the way, through their online laws."

"So it is a true free speech disaster in the U.K., and they don't even seem to know what's happening," he added.

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A non-crime hate incident, according to the U.K. government, is defined as "an incident or alleged incident which involves or is alleged to involve an act by a person ('the subject') which is perceived by a person other than the subject to be motivated — wholly or partly — by hostility or prejudice towards persons with a particular characteristic."

The government, according to FIRE, creates a registry of people who participate in these NCHIs, which the organization calls "censorship with extra steps."

"Non-criminal hate speech incidents can be anything from just someone saying something like, we want to reduce immigration because it raises crime rates. That's an empirical question. If you're a free person or free society, you should be able to actually have that debate. You should be able to show numbers. You better persuade, et cetera. You can't just deem it illegal to have that argument," Lukianoff told Fox News Digital.

"I think that there's so much the U.K. could have to offer if it would get off its own feet. Essentially, I think that it's in a process of kind of rejecting everything that made it great at one point. And if we can help out a friend — even when they don't know they're in need — when they're in need, I think we absolutely should. But I really don't know how Britain can get a better view of itself at the moment, because currently the message isn't getting through that what's going on there right now isn't sustainable," Lukianoff said.

Fox News Digital contacted Smart for further comment.

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Iran-backed Houthi threat in Red Sea could lead to major US policy shift, analysts say

JOHANNESBURG: As the Iran-backed Houthis step up their threat to Red Sea shipping, analysts say the U.S. could consider a major change in strategy.

Houthi attacks on ships passing through a vital chokepoint may lead Washington to cement relations with more reliable partners along Africa’s coastline.

Somaliland is a pro-U.S. outpost, having broken away from war-torn Somalia in 1991, and is offering the U.S. the use of one of the longest runways in Africa, an air base and a deep sea port on the Red Sea.

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The Houthis have vowed to close the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait, a narrow waterway through which Saudi Arabia exports up to 7 million barrels of oil a day, now that access to the Strait of Hormuz is severely restricted. In the past month in the Red Sea, the Houthis have reportedly attacked Saudi-flagged ships, are said to have sunk an Indian commercial cargo vessel and, on Aug. 13, an Egyptian cargo ship was hit, with at least four of its crew killed.

The U.S. already has a large military base on the Red Sea in Djibouti, but this is claimed to be increasingly problematic. "China is significantly expanding its military and commercial presence in Djibouti," Edmund Fitton-Brown previously told Fox News Digital.

Fitton-Brown, the former British ambassador to the Houthis’ home country, Yemen, and a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, (FDD), added, "There is a sense that Djibouti is not a reliable ally for the U.S. So Somaliland’s time has probably come."

Major General Ken Ekman, who retired last year from being the Department of War’s West Africa Coordination Element Lead, said, in essence, the Houthis could force the U.S. into recognizing Somaliland as an independent state. "The Houthis could compel a different U.S. strategy in Africa."

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Ekman said the Houthis are building up a second front in this Middle East conflict. "It distracts the U.S. and stretches our assets," he added.

"The Houthis have a strategy of their own. They are testing U.S. military ability, and are likely to pull the trigger in a major way when Iranian influence in the Strait of Hormuz wanes in leverage."

He said that recently the U.S. Africa Command, AFRICOM, has concentrated on looking at land-based threats. "To date, our Africa strategy is driven by counterterrorism missions against Islamist al Qaeda and ISIS-linked groups based in Africa."

He continued, "These groups pose a limited and not immediate threat to the U.S. homeland. Overall, Red Sea basing to date has focused more on crisis response in East Africa, countering and competing against Russia and China."

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Ekman added, "orienting a Horn of Africa strategy against the Houthis would place a premium on freedom of navigation. Somaliland is proximate and overcomes some of the limitations imposed by other regional hosts like Djibouti and Middle East partners."

Limitations and an apparent sense of frustration with Somalia, Somaliland’s neighbor and rival, have been expressed in a warning from U.S. Air Force Gen. Dagvin Anderson, commander of U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM).

In a recent interview with a Somali journalist, he was asked whether the U.S. was pulling out of the nation and turning its back on it.

Anderson said the U.S. has not turned its back on Somalia, having been committed to the country for several years, he noted the success of its counterterrorism group known as DANAB, which he said is "one of the most capable forces on the continent." He noted that "it was up to Somalia to sustain that force… to build it and continue to make it effective going into the future and use it as it was designed to counterterrorism."

Referring to the Somali government’s apparent lack of ability to deal decisively with Islamist al-Shabab terrorists, Anderson seemingly hinted at pulling some or even all military support. "If Somalia steps up and the government steps up and takes the lead on this, we will continue to be there because there is mutual interest."

He continued, "But if we can’t see that in, the political instability and political infighting continues, then it’s going to be very hard for us to continue to stay engaged."

Bill Roggio, editor of the Long War Journal, said Washington is fed up with Mogadishu, but currently not enough for the U.S. to change allegiance to Somaliland.

He told Fox News Digital, "The U.S. has expressed displeasure with the Somali government's rampant corruption and internal infighting with local and regional governments, and with various clans. However, full recognition of Somaliland independence would create a major rift between the U.S. and Somalia."

Roggio didn’t rule out the U.S. operating a second Red Sea base in Somaliland, saying "U.S. forces situated at Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti are far better situated geographically to deter the Houthis from shutting down the Bab el Mandeb Strait than a potential base in Somaliland. That being said, redundancy (back up plan) is a good thing in military operations."

"The United States needs reliable partners on Africa's coastline," Bashir Goth, Somaliland Representative to the United States, told Fox News Digital.

Goth said, "Somaliland is that partner and our defense officials have been in active dialogue with AFRICOM on Red Sea security. Somaliland has the geography, the stability and the will to work closely with Washington — and will continue to do so."

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Officially, the U.S. still stands with Somalia, in preference to Somaliland.

A State Department spokesperson told Fox News Digital, "The United States works with Somali and international partners to address terrorist threats in Somalia when necessary and appropriate to protect U.S. national security interests."

In the Red Sea, Saudi Arabia and 13 other nations established a new maritime defense coalition to combat the Houthi threat. Publicly, at least, the U.S. is not part of this coalition.

Responding to questioning on this issue, a State Department spokesperson told Fox News Digital, "The United States stands firmly with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia against Houthi terrorism. We are in close consultation with our Saudi allies and remain committed to their security."

The U.S. does appear though to be stepping up interaction with Somaliland. AFRICOM Commander Anderson again visited Somaliland this past week, with an official statement saying he "traveled to the port city of Berbera to assess the security environment and review the port’s operational capacity."

In the same week, the U.S. reportedly hosted a delegation of Somalilanders led by the state’s defense minister at AFRICOM HQ in Stuttgart, Germany, where Red Sea security was reportedly again discussed.

AFRICOM and the Department of War did not respond to Fox News Digital requests for information about the visits.

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North Korea launches another ballistic missile as US, South Korea prepare for military drills

North Korea launched another ballistic missile Tuesday, marking its second reported ballistic missile launch in less than a week.

Japan’s prime minister’s office announced the latest launch Tuesday. Details about the missile’s trajectory, range and where it landed were not immediately available.

The U.S. military said it was monitoring the launch and consulting with allies and partners in the region.

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"We are aware of the recent missile launch and are consulting closely with our allies and partners. Based on current assessments, these events do not pose an immediate threat to U.S. personnel or territory, or to our allies," U.S. Pacific Command said in a statement. "The United States remains committed to the defense of the U.S. homeland and our allies in the region."

The latest launch comes less than a week after North Korea test-fired a short-range ballistic missile from its eastern Wonsan area on Aug. 5.

That missile landed in waters off North Korea’s east coast and did not reach Japanese territory, Japanese Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi said following the launch.

Koizumi said North Korea’s repeated missile launches pose a threat to Japan and the region, and Tokyo lodged a protest with Pyongyang through their embassies in Beijing.

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South Korea’s military bolstered its surveillance posture and coordinated with the U.S. and Japan following the Aug. 5 launch, according to South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff.

South Korea’s presidential national security council called that launch "a provocation" that violated U.N. Security Council resolutions and urged North Korea to stop its missile activity.

The launches come ahead of annual joint military exercises between the U.S. and South Korea, which are typically held during the second half of August.

"This annual exercise aims to build understanding between Combined Forces Command, United States Forces Korea, the United Nations Command, and ROK Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), ROK government agency, ensuring their ability to fortify the combined defense posture and enhance Alliance response capabilities against a spectrum of security threats," United States Forces Korea has said of the Ulchi Freedom Shield exercises.

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"It will feature live, virtual, constructive and field-based training, engaging personnel from the various military services," it added.

U.S. and South Korean officials have said the training is defensive in nature, while North Korea has characterized the exercises as preparation for an invasion and has often responded to military drills with missile tests.

The Aug. 5 test was North Korea’s first ballistic missile launch since late June, when it tested a tactical ballistic missile carrying what state media described as a "special mission" warhead along with other weapons.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said following those tests that his military needed to bolster its "deadly and destructive offensive posture."

Fox News Digital's Greg Norman-Diamond contributed to this report.

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Taliban wipes out decades of progress as 2.4M Afghan girls remain locked out of school, UN agency says

Five years after the Taliban reclaimed reclaimed Afghanistan, 2.4 million girls remain locked out of secondary school, wiping away decades of progress and leaving a generation of young women without access to the classroom.

Afghanistan is now the only country in the world that formally prohibits girls and women from receiving an education beyond the primary level, according to UNESCO, which issued a new call Tuesday for the "immediate and unconditional" restoration of their right to education.

The United Nations agency warned that the consequences of the Taliban's policies now reach far beyond the classroom, with women barred from most paid jobs and public-facing professions and facing restrictions on their ability to travel without a male guardian.

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"Women have been erased from public life, and as a new generation of girls grows without an education, their future becomes increasingly dark," UNESCO said in a statement.

The Taliban swept back into power on Aug. 15, 2021, as U.S. and NATO forces withdrew from Afghanistan after two decades of war.

The Taliban soon barred girls from secondary schools and later expanded the restrictions to universities, employment and other areas of public life.

Despite years of pressure from the United Nations, humanitarian groups, human rights advocates and several Islamic countries, the Taliban has refused to lift the education restrictions and has maintained that the issue is a domestic matter, according to The Associated Press.

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The impact has been a dramatic reversal of the educational gains made by Afghan girls during the previous two decades.

While girls had severely limited access to schooling in 2001, nearly 1 million were enrolled in secondary education by 2021, according to UNESCO.

Five years later, an estimated 2.4 million girls are excluded from secondary education.

"Five years is not a temporary interruption in a child's education," Hoda Jaberian, UNESCO's program coordinator for education in emergencies, said during a video news conference Tuesday, according to The AP. "It is clearly almost an entire secondary school cycle."

UNESCO warned that denying education to girls while restricting women's ability to work could deepen Afghanistan's already severe economic problems.

Nearly half of Afghanistan's population lives below the poverty line, according to UNESCO, which said preventing women from studying and working further limits their ability to support their families and contribute to the country's economy.

The agency also warned that excluding girls from school can damage their mental and physical well-being and increase the risk of early marriage.

The effects could also reach Afghan boys.

UNESCO said the Taliban's ban on female teachers teaching boys is worsening teacher shortages and undermining the quality of education across Afghanistan.

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With formal secondary and higher education closed to women and girls, UNESCO says it has turned to community-based education, literacy and skills development programs and psychosocial support to keep them learning.

Nearly 70,000 people have participated in UNESCO's programs, with women accounting for 73% of the learners, according to the agency.

Some literacy and skills classes take place in community spaces and in the homes of facilitators with the knowledge of authorities, according to The AP. More than 1,000 literacy facilitators are involved, most of whom have been trained by UNESCO and its partners.

UNESCO said a recent study found evidence that its literacy and skills programs have helped increase household incomes and improve livelihoods.

The agency acknowledged, however, that such efforts cannot replace formal schooling.

"Afghanistan's girls and women have the right to learn, to work, to move freely, and to shape their own futures," UNESCO said, adding that "the world must not look away until their human rights are restored."

UNESCO said it would continue working with local communities and partners to maintain alternative opportunities for Afghan women and girls while pressing for the education ban to be lifted.

"UNESCO continues to call for the immediate and unconditional restoration of girls and women's right to secondary and higher education," Jaberian said Tuesday. "It is not negotiable. It's a basic human right and we reiterate that there is no substitute for this."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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More than 3,000 missing after Colombia earthquake as Trump administration provides $15.5 million in relief

More than 3,000 are reported missing in Colombia on Tuesday following a massive 7.4-magnitude earthquake, prompting a desperate search for survivors and a pledge from the Trump administration of $15.5 million in relief.

Videos and photos emerged from Colombia showing first responders combing through rubble and debris, looking for any signs of life. Mayors and governors from Cali, Pereira, Chocó and Manizales said Tuesday at least 179 people had died in those four areas, while the federal government, which last updated its estimates in the hours after earthquake hit Monday, has said at least 111 died, according to The Associated Press.

"We are united in prayer with the Colombian people and stand ready to support President Abelardo De la Espriella and his government as they assess the needs on the ground," the State Department said on X.

It added that "the Trump Administration is committing $15.5 million in funding for emergency shelter, food, protection, and earthquake assessments."

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Around 1,600 buildings across Colombia have been reported damaged or collapsed, and more than 3,000 people are missing, the AP reported.

President Abelardo De la Espriella, who was inaugurated just days earlier, traveled to Chocó’s capital, Quibdó, on Monday night and announced he was mobilizing "the entire military and police apparatus" to respond, deploying engineers, rescue workers and search dogs.

"Chocó will never again be the ‘land of the forgotten,’" he said.

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The U.S. Geological Survey said the earthquake was centered in San José del Palmar, a town located within the western Chocó region, which borders the Pacific Ocean.

In a post on X, De la Espriella, added that, "The National Government stands with the people of Chocó."

"Immediate economic resources and humanitarian aid have already been allocated to support the more than 1,400 affected families and individuals," he added. "The injured and those requiring priority medical attention are being transferred to Medellín with all available hospital capacity."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Former Syrian President Assad sentenced to death in absentia

A Syrian court sentenced ousted Syrian President Bashar Assad along with his younger brother to death in absentia on Tuesday for crimes against humanity and war crimes during Syria’s 14-year conflict that left about half a million people dead.

The sentences at the Fourth Criminal Court in Damascus are the first against Assad or members of his inner circle since the Assad family's five decades in power came to an end 20 months ago.

"Bashar Assad used state agencies to commit war crimes and crimes against humanity," said judge Fakhareddine al-Aryan during a court session that was aired live on state TV.

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Also sentenced to death in the same case was Assad’s maternal cousin Atef Najib, who was convicted of overseeing a crackdown in the southern province of Daraa that led to the uprising and later the civil war.

Amid tight security, Najib stood inside a cage wearing a prisoner’s uniform as the judge read the sentence. A crowd of people gathered outside the courthouse in central Damascus to hear the verdict.

Assad and his brother Maher fled to Russia after the government's fall in December 2024 and received political asylum. Syria's new rulers have asked Russia to hand the Assads over.

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Najib, who was sanctioned by the U.S. Department of the Treasury in April 2011, was later detained and is one of the highest-ranking officials to be put on trial.

Najib is a former Syrian army brigadier general who was head of the Political Security Branch in southern Syria’s Daraa province under Assad in 2011.

During his tenure, more than a dozen teenagers who scrawled anti-government graffiti on a school wall in Daraa were arrested and tortured. The case became a catalyst for mass protests against the repressive policies of Assad’s security forces.

The protests were met by a brutal government crackdown and spiraled into a 14-year civil war that ended with Assad’s ouster in a lightning rebel offensive.

Maher Assad was a former commander of the Syrian military’s 4th Armored Division — which Syrian opposition activists have accused of killings, torture, extortion and drug trafficking, in addition to running its own detention centers.

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