CAIRO: Egypt will participate in the first ministerial meeting of Sudan’s neighboring countries which will be held in Chad.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry on Sunday headed to the Chadian capital N’Djamena to take part in the first meeting of the ministerial mechanism aimed at resolving the conflict in Sudan.

The ministerial mechanism was formed at the summit of Sudan’s neighbors held on July 13 in Cairo.

BEIRUT: Six members of Syrian regime forces were killed on Sunday in attacks on regime positions in the conflict-torn country’s northwest, the last main bastion of armed opposition, a war monitor said.

“Six regime forces, including two officers, were killed and two others wounded” in three attacks by extremist group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham or HTS and allied factions, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The attacks targeted regime positions in Latakia province, said the Britain-based group which relies on a vast network of sources on the ground.

AL-MUKALLA: The Houthis announced on Sunday that Ahmed Ali Al-Hamzi, commander of the militia’s Air Force and Air Defense Force, had died after “suffering from illness.”

The announcement came as local media outlets reported that the Houthis had arranged funeral processions for over 100 fighters killed on the battlefield since the beginning of July. 

In 2021, the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned Al-Hamzi for smuggling drones and other weapons from Iran to Yemen and receiving military training in Iran.

DUBAI: Israel has to meet the conditions set out in the Arab Peace Initiative proposed by Riyadh in 2002 for any dreams of normalization of ties with Saudi Arabia to materialize, Yossi Mekelberg, associate fellow for the Middle East and North Africa Program at Chatham House, has said.

Appearing in the latest episode of “Frankly Speaking,” the weekly Arab News current affairs show, Mekelberg said that the Arab Peace Initiative is “as relevant today as it was 21 years ago” as a means of ending the conflict and achieving normalization.

CAIRO: The Egyptian Public Prosecution Office has revealed more details about the fire that broke out on Saturday at the Ministry of Religious Endowments in Cairo.

Following an investigation, which included questioning security personnel in the building, the representative for legal affairs and the ministry’s general manager for infrastructure, the prosecutors concluded that the blaze was caused by an electrical short circuit in an air-conditioning unit in the computer server room on the first floor.