The Levant Files

Το ταχύπλοο καταμαράν Filo Jet, που ανατράπηκε ανοικτά της Κύπρου λίγο μετά τον απόπλου του από την κατεχόμενη Κερύνεια με προορισμό το Τάσουτζου της Μερσίνης, με 259 επιβάτες και οκτώ μέλη πληρώματος, φέρεται να είχε ήδη υποστεί δομική βλάβη όταν απέπλευσε, σύμφωνα με πραγματογνώμονες ασφαλιστικών εταιρειών που επικαλείται η τουρκική εφημερίδα «Χιουρριγέτ». Οκτώ άνθρωποι έχασαν τη ζωή τους και 18 αγνοούνται. Οι πραγματογνώμονες που ορίστηκαν από τους ασφαλιστές κύτους και P&I αναφέρουν ότι οι ρωγμές που βύθισαν το σκάφος δεν δημιουργήθηκαν την ημέρα του δυστυχήματος. Ημέρες νωρίτερα, το πλοίο είχε ταξιδέψει μέσα σε θύελλα, με ανέμους περίπου 30 κόμβων και κύματα τεσσάρων έως τεσσεράμισι μέτρων — συνθήκες πολύ πέραν του ορίου των τριών μέτρων που ισχύει για ταχύπλοα σύνθετης κατασκευής. Υποστηρίζουν ότι διαθέτουν βίντεο που δείχνει τη ζημιά στο κατάστρωμα από εκείνο το ταξίδι και ότι ο πλοίαρχος και το πλήρωμα απέπλευσαν παρά ταύτα. Σύμφωνα με την ανασύσταση των πραγματογνωμόνων, θ...

The high-speed catamaran Filo Jet, which capsized off Cyprus shortly after leaving Kyrenia (Girne) for Taşucu, Mersin, with 259 passengers and eight crew, appears to have sailed with structural damage sustained days before the accident, according to insurance surveyors cited by the Turkish daily Hürriyet. Eight people died and 18 remain missing. Loss adjusters appointed by the vessel's hull and P&I underwriters told Hürriyet that the cracks that sank the ship were not opened on the day of the disaster. Days earlier, the ferry had been driven through a storm in roughly 30 knots of wind and waves of four to four-and-a-half metres — conditions the surveyors say were well beyond the three-metre limit for a composite-hulled fast craft. They claim to hold video showing damage to the deck structure from that earlier passage, and allege the master and crew put to sea regardless. The surveyors' reconstruction is that seawater filled the void space beneath the passenger saloon, surfa...

By Al-Nuwai Qahdoun Damascus asserts itself as the oldest capital in history, yet repeatedly finds itself burdened with the disgrace inflicted upon it by those who have lost their humanity. They envy it because it taught them reading and writing; it is struck by the arrows of jealousy fired by the new enemies of civilisation. And so there is no wonder that Damascus falls and rises again, time after time. It confronts all the backwardness, ugliness and resentment the world can muster and endures the recklessness of those who seek to toy with its fate. Damascus can bear it because it is greater and stronger than they are. They will disappear; Damascus will remain. Poets and historians will continue writing verses of love, passion and pride for a capital whose history is not written by history itself—for Damascus is one of the cities that created history. I remember the days following the death of Hafez al-Assad, may he rest in peace, in June 2000, when the Syrian People's Assembly co...

Greece’s Communist Party (KKE) has sharply condemned the government’s new air-defence agreement with Israel, arguing that the so-called “Achilles Shield” will deepen Greece’s military involvement in regional conflicts while imposing a multibillion-euro burden on the public. According to the Greek news outlet 902.gr, agreements signed on Monday between Athens and Israel cover the acquisition of several Israeli-made air-defence systems at a total cost exceeding €3 billion. The package reportedly includes Rafael’s David’s Sling and Spyder systems, as well as the Barak MX system produced by Israel Aerospace Industries. A separate €26 million agreement is also said to cover the Drone Dome counter-unmanned aerial vehicle system. The deal forms part of Greece’s broader “Agenda 2030” defence modernisation programme and has been promoted by the government as a multilayered architecture designed to strengthen protection of Greek territory. KKE, however, rejected that description. In a statement ...

Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan met in Istanbul hours after Washington and Tehran resumed direct strikes Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan gave their three-week-old defence pact an institutional skeleton on Monday, naming it the Mecca Defence Alliance and agreeing to seat its permanent secretariat in Riyadh under a Pakistani secretary-general. The decisions came out of the first meeting of the Strategic Political and Defence Committee, held at Istanbul's Çırağan Palace. Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan led his delegation with Defence Minister Yaşar Güler and Chief of the General Staff Gen. Selçuk Bayraktaroğlu. Saudi Arabia sent Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan, Defence Minister Prince Khalid bin Salman and Gen. Fayyad bin Hamed al-Ruwaili. Pakistan was represented by Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar, Defence Minister Khawaja Asif and army chief Field Marshal Asim Munir. Fidan said the alliance would run through a ministerial committee modelled on NATO's structure, and...

Speaking at the 26th Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Bishkek on Monday, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian offered Washington a conditional return to the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding, the ceasefire framework signed on June 18 after roughly three months of Pakistani and Qatari mediation. If the United States resumes its obligations under the document, he said, Iran will reciprocate immediately. American compliance, he added, lasted under two weeks; Iran's responses since have been proportionate. The offer came wrapped in a victory narrative. Pezeshkian told SCO leaders that the American and Israeli attacks of June 13, 2025 and February 28, 2026 opened a 40-day war that began with the killing of Iran's Supreme Leader, a strike on a school in Minab that killed 168 students and teachers, and an attack on a stadium in Lamerd that left 200 dead and wounded. Iran, he said, inflicted heavy strategic defeats on both attackers and forced a ceasefire the US never wan...