The Karachi Commissioner issued a notification to impose Section 144 for a 48-hour period starting on December 31, it emerged on Sunday.
New Year’s Eve in Karachi sees citizens performing aerial gunfire and using fireworks which have caused injury in the past.
On December 31, 2023, then-Commissioner Muhammad Saleem Rajput imposed Section 144 “to safeguard the people of the city during New Year’s celebrations”.
According to a notification, the commissioner while exercising powers delegated by the provincial home department imposed the ban from December 31 to January 1, 2024.
Section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code is a legal provision that empowers district administrations to prohibit an assembly of four or more people in an area for a limited period.
According to the notification dated December 24 — a copy of which is available with Dawn.com, Commissioner Syed Hassan Naqvi has imposed the ban based on information that “a large number of youngsters from different areas of the city will move to Seaview on motorcycles and cars for the celebrations of New Year”.
The notification adds that the presence of these people creates traffic jams and inconveniences “the residents of the area”.
South Deputy Inspector General of Police (DIG) requested the ban on displaying firearms, aerial firing and the use of fireworks to “safeguard the precious lives of the citizens”.
The commissioner noted that on New Year’s Eve, “some individuals get involved in aerial firing that may cause untoward incidents/loss of human lives”.
A “complete ban on carrying/display of arms, aerial firing and use of firecrackers on New Year’s Eve-2025” was notified, with the ban applicable within the local limits of Karachi from December 31 to January 1, 2025.
More than 112,000 Syrians forcibly disappeared under the Baath regime remain unaccounted for, with evidence suggesting many were killed in detention, the Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) reported.
The scale of torture and extrajudicial executions in Syrian prisons has been increasingly revealed following the collapse of the 61-year Baath Party regime on December 8.
The SNHR’s database includes records of approximately 136,000 individuals who were detained or forcibly disappeared during the Baath regime. The organisation has documented the release of about 24,200 prisoners from detention facilities across Syria since President Bashar Al-Assad’s ouster.
SNHR Chairman Fadel Abdul Ghany told Anadolu that the group is currently verifying details of those freed from prisons in Aleppo on November 28, Hama on December 5, Homs on December 7, and Damascus on December 8.
“After excluding recent releases, 112,414 individuals detained by the regime remain unaccounted for and were most likely killed,” said Abdul Ghany. “Since their bodies have not been returned to their families, they are still categorised as forcibly disappeared … There is no evidence to suggest they are still alive.”
Ghany said the regime deliberately delayed recording deaths in civil registries to prolong families’ anguish.
He highlighted that people killed by the Baath regime often had two dates recorded in the civil registry: the actual date of their death and the delayed date of its registration, sometimes years apart.
“They were killed and registered without notifying their families, leaving them to endure ongoing suffering while awaiting news or the discovery of mass graves,” he said, adding that the regime used this tactic to give false hope.
Ghany noted that dozens of mass graves remain undiscovered across Syria. “Only a few mass graves have been uncovered, and there are rumours of many more,” he said.
He stressed that identifying bodies and matching them with samples from families of the disappeared is a highly complex process, emphasising that only when bodies are identified can the fate of the forcibly disappeared be confirmed.
He also cautioned against fostering false hope among families regarding rumours of secret underground prisons. Ghany said that all of the regime’s prisons were opened after December 8. There is no one left in these facilities, nor are there any secret prisons.
Established in June 2011 to document systematic human rights violations in Syria, the SNHR continues its efforts under Abdul Ghany’s leadership as thousands of families await news of their missing loved ones.
The Israeli government on Sunday approved a plan to double the population of the occupied and annexed Golan Heights, following the fall of Bashar al-Assad in Syria, the prime minister’s office said.
The government had “unanimously approved” the 40 million shekel ($11 million) “plan for the demographic development of the Golan … in light of the war and the new front in Syria and the desire to double the population”, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said.
Israel has occupied most of the Golan Heights, a strategic plateau, since 1967 and annexed that area in 1981 in a move recognised only by the United States.
Netanyahu said, “The strengthening of the Golan is that of the State of Israel and it is particularly important at this time. We will continue to establish ourselves there, develop it and settle there”.
The occupied Golan Heights are home to about 23,000 Druze Arabs, whose presence predates the occupation and most of whom retain Syrian citizenship, as well as around 30,000 Israelis.
Last week, Netanyahu declared that the annexed Golan would be Israeli “for eternity”. That followed an order he gave for troops to cross into a UN-patrolled buffer zone separating Israeli and Syrian forces since 1974. Troops also seized areas beyond the buffer, including on Mount Hermon.
Israel portrayed the move, which drew international condemnation, as a temporary and defensive measure after what Netanyahu’s office called a “vacuum on Israel’s border and in the buffer zone”, following Assad’s fall.
In the aftermath of Assad’s overthrow, Israel also launched hundreds of strikes on Syria — according to a war monitor — targeting strategic military sites and weapons, including chemical weapons.
On Sunday, the Israeli premier said his country had “no interest in confronting Syria. Israel’s policy toward Syria will be determined by the evolving reality on the ground”.
In a video statement following a phone call with US President-elect Donald Trump, Netanyahu said Syria had attacked Israel in the past and allowed others including Lebanese Hezbollah to do so from its territory.
“To ensure that what happened in the past does not happen again, we have taken a series of intensive actions in recent days,” he said. “Within a few days, we destroyed capabilities that the Assad regime had built over decades.”
Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, the head of the rebels who toppled Assad who now goes by his real name, Ahmed al-Sharaa, on Saturday accused Israel of “a new unjustified escalation in the region” by entering the buffer zone.
However, he said, “The general exhaustion in Syria after years of war and conflict does not allow us to enter new conflicts”.
Washington in 2019 became the first and so far only country to recognise Israeli sovereignty over the Golan, during Trump’s first term.
Karachi police on Monday launched an investigation to ascertain possible motives behind the murder of an army man who was gunned down in Bahadurabad the previous night, officials said.
Police said that Adnan Abbasi, 47, was shot and killed by “an unknown suspect due to unknown reasons” near Mariam Masjid, Adamjee Nagar on Sunday. He was killed in the presence of his family while riding a motorcycle, officials said.
Bahadurabad Station Investigation Officer (SIO) Amir Altaf told Dawn.com that police registered a murder case on the complaint of the family and launched a probe.
He said Abbasi was an army soldier and was riding a motorcycle with his wife and children when the suspects attacked him. “He suffered critical bullet injuries and was transported to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre, where doctors pronounced him dead.”
Karachi Additional Inspector General of Police (IGP) Javed Odho told Dawn.com that the police were probing the incident from different aspects.
According to him, the circumstances and events suggested that it was a targeted murder motivated by some considerations, probably personal enmity.
“The suspects were already present there and they did not attempt to loot any bike-riders passing through the area, thus it did not appear to be a robbery-related incident though the investigators did not ‘completely’ rule out the possibility of the robbery,” IGP Odho said.
He said the family insisted on lodging the first information report (FIR) under Section 302 (premeditated murder) of the Pakistan Penal Code, not robbery-related, which meant they had “some information” about the possible suspects.
Relatives told the police that they would approach them after the burial of the victim in his native area of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, according to SIO Altaf.
According to a statement by East police spokesperson Syed Umair Shah, the incident occurred around 10:03pm on Sunday.
“A suspect who wore a helmet resorted to firing on Adnan Abbasi. The suspect’s accomplice was standing at ‘considerable distance’. The killer ran towards his accomplice after the firing,” the police statement said.
Some evidence has been collected from the spot, with one such “evidence” suggesting that the killer was waiting there for around 20 minutes, motorcycles were passing by in the meantime.
“When the victim arrived there, the armed suspect ‘all of a sudden’ opened fire on him,” the statement said.
The incident is being probed from “different aspects”.
“It would be premature to conclude that the murder was an outcome of robbery resistance or other aspect was involved,” the statement added.
Syrian rebels advancing against government forces pushed close on Tuesday to the major city of Hama, rebels and a war monitor said, after their sudden capture of Aleppo last week rocked President Bashar al-Assad.
Rebels and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said insurgents had captured villages, including Maar Shahur, a few miles north of the city. Syrian state media said reinforcements were arriving in the area.
An attack on Hama would ramp up pressure on Assad, whose Russian and Iranian allies have scrambled to support him against a reviving rebellion. The city has remained in government hands since civil war erupted in 2011.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said in an interview that Tehran would consider sending troops to Syria if Damascus asked, and Russian President Vladimir Putin urged an end to “terrorist aggression” in Syria, RIA reported.
Iraq Prime Minister Shia al-Sudani said Baghdad would not be “a mere spectator” in Syria and blamed Israeli military strikes on the Syrian government for the rebel advance, his office said.
Compounding Assad’s problems, fighters from a US-backed, Kurdish-led coalition battled government forces in the northeast, both sides said, opening a new front along a vital supply route.
Last week’s rebel seizure of Aleppo — Syria’s largest city before the war — marked the biggest offensive for years.
The front lines of the conflict have been frozen since 2020 after Assad clawed back most of the country from rebels, thanks to help from Russian air power and military help from Iran and its network of regional militia groups.
Now, however, Russia has been concentrating on the war in Ukraine, while Israeli strikes over the past three months have decimated the leadership of Hezbollah, the strongest Iran-backed force fighting in Syria.
On Monday, hundreds of Iran-backed Iraqi militia fighters entered Syria to back up Syrian government forces, Iraqi and Syrian sources said, but Hezbollah does not plan to send forces now.
A rebel source said Iran-backed militia fighters were among the forces they were battling outside Hama.
In recent days, Russian and Syrian government warplanes have intensified airstrikes against rebels, both sides have said. Rescue workers have reported deadly strikes on hospitals in Aleppo and Idlib.
Any sustained escalation in Syria risks further destabilising a region already alight from conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon, where a truce between Israel and the Hezbollah group took effect last week.
The retreat by Assad’s forces over the past several days has led to jockeying for control among other groups that control pockets in the northwest, north and east.
The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an umbrella group which controls territory in Syria’s east with US support, said early today that its Deir al-Zor Military Council had “become responsible for protecting” seven villages previously held by the Syrian army.
The Deir al-Zor Military Council comprises local Arab fighters under the SDF, an alliance mainly led by a Kurdish militia, the YPG.
Syrian state media reported that the army and allied forces were repelling an SDF assault on the villages, the only Syrian government presence along the east bank of the Euphrates River, an area otherwise mostly held by the SDF.
A Syrian military officer said the SDF push was aimed at exploiting government forces’ weakness after the rebel advance, and said the army and allied Iran-backed militia groups were sending reinforcements.
Airstrikes also targeted Iran-backed militia groups supporting Syrian government forces in the strategically vital region, a security source in eastern Syria and a Syrian army source said.
The US military, which has a small number of troops based at a gas field in the area, carried out at least one strike in self-defence overnight, a US official said, adding it was not related to the ongoing rebel advances.
The battlefield is crowded in northern Syria, with the US, Russia, Iran and Turkiye all involved in the renewed fighting, underscoring the messy global politics at play.
On Monday, Iran said there would be a foreign ministers meeting with Turkiye and Russia in Doha next weekend as part of a diplomatic process that had earlier been used to stabilise borders.
The SDF was the main Western-backed ground force in eastern Syria fighting the Islamic State, which ran a jihadist mini-state there from 2014-17. Turkey says the SDF’s main fighting force, the YPG, are Kurdish separatists it regards as terrorists and sent troops across the frontier in 2017 to push them back.
Rebel advances in recent days have dislodged the YPG from areas in and near Aleppo, including Aleppo’s Sheikh Maqsoud district and a corridor around Tel Refaat to the north.
The SDF presence in northeast Syria along much of the border with Iraq also complicates supply lines for Iran-backed regional militia groups supporting Assad.
On Monday, Reuters reported that hundreds of Iran-backed Iraqi fighters had crossed the border into Syria to help government forces.
Israel has regularly struck Iran-backed forces in Syria. Hezbollah said an Israeli strike near Damascus today killed one of its senior officers liaising with the Syrian military. Israel’s military said it does not comment on reports in foreign media.
Liverpool piled on the misery for Manchester City as the Premier League leaders beat the troubled champions 2-0 at Anfield, while Manchester United boss Ruben Amorim earned his first league win with a 4-0 rout of Everton on Sunday.
Arne Slot’s side moved nine points clear of second-placed Arsenal after Cody Gakpo’s first-half opener and Mohamed Salah’s late penalty dealt another blow to reeling City, who are languishing 11 points behind Liverpool in fifth place.
City have lost four successive top-flight games for the first time since 2008, making them the first Premier League champions to endure such a dismal run the year after claiming the title.
In the 32 Premier League seasons, only three times have teams come from 11 or more points behind at any point to win the title.
City have clawed back significant deficits to win the Premier League in the Guardiola era, but they have never managed to lift the title after being behind by more than 10 points.
City’s seven-game winless run ranks as boss Pep Guardiola’s longest barren streak in his glittering managerial career.
Just weeks after he signed a new two-year contract, Liverpool fans taunted Guardiola with chants of “You’re getting sacked in the morning”, prompting a defiant response from the Spaniard, who held up six fingers to illustrate the number of titles he has won with City.
Liverpool have won 18 of their 20 games in all competitions since Slot replaced Jurgen Klopp in the close-season. The Reds have won 11 of their 13 Premier League matches and are firm favourites to win the title for the first time since 2020.
Guardiola sprang a surprise by starting Stefan Ortega in goal instead of the dropped Ederson, but the German had to pick the ball out of his net after just 12 minutes.
City’s defence was in disarray as Salah curled a shot towards the far post and Gakpo pounced to poke home from virtually on the line.
Salah’s 78th-minute penalty, awarded for Ortega’s foul on Luis Diaz, was a dagger in the heart of City’s title hopes.
Amorim stole the spotlight in Sunday’s early games by extending his unbeaten start with United to three matches.
United were held to a 1-1 draw at Ipswich in his first Premier League game last Sunday before the Portuguese boss earned his maiden win with United in a 3-2 success against Bodo/Glimt at Old Trafford in the Europa League on Thursday.
The 39-year-old, who arrived from Sporting Lisbon to replace the sacked Erik ten Hag in November, has warned United would “suffer for a long period” before they can expect to challenge for the title.
This was the most encouraging result of Amorim’s brief time at ninth-placed United as they recovered from a slow start to dispatch lowly Everton.
Marcus Rashford’s 34th-minute drive from the edge of the area took a deflection off Jarrad Branthwaite before flashing into the net.
United struck again seven minutes later as Branthwaite lost possession to Amad Diallo and Bruno Fernandes teed up Joshua Zirkzee to convert with ease.
Rashford underlined United’s superiority just 20 seconds after the interval as he applied a cool finish to Diallo’s incisive pass for his seventh goal this season.
Zirkee struck again in the 64th minute with a composed strike from the influential Diallo’s assist after shambolic Everton defending.
“The result was good but we were pragmatic. It was not pretty,” Amorim said. “It is a rollercoaster. We have some moments when we are good but then we have moments when we have to suffer.”
At Stamford Bridge, Chelsea extended their unbeaten run in all competitions to six games with a 3-0 win against Aston Villa, whose dismal winless streak reached eight matches.
Enzo Maresca’s men look capable of securing Champions League qualification after a third successive win in the space of eight days moved them level on points with second-placed Arsenal.
Nicolas Jackson and Enzo Fernandez scored in the first half before Cole Palmer struck in the closing stages.
Seventh-placed Tottenham’s top-four hopes were dented by a 1-1 draw against 10-man Fulham.
Brennan Johnson slotted Tottenham into the lead from Timo Werner’s 54th-minute pass, but Tom Cairney curled Fulham’s equaliser into the far corner after 67 minutes.
Cairney was sent off with seven minutes left after his foul on Dejan Kulusevski was upgraded from referee Darren Bond’s initial yellow card to a red after VAR intervened.
