On Saturday, thousands of Iraqis accompanied the body of former Member of Parliament Ahmed Al-Alwani from Baghdad Airport to Ramadi in Anbar Governorate, where members of his clan and citizens from the cities of the governorate were waiting for his arrival, amid feelings of sadness and anger, while the circumstances of his killing in Beirut are still under investigation, despite the Lebanese authorities making progress in identifying two suspects.
A private plane transported Alwani's body from the Lebanese capital, Beirut, to Baghdad Airport landed in the morning hours, where large numbers of mourners gathered at the entrance leading to the airport.
Local media said that Iraqi politician Khamis Al-Khanjar, head of the Sovereignty Alliance, was the one who sponsored the transportation of the body on the private plane.
The funeral procession set off towards Ramadi, 110 kilometers from Baghdad, amid security deployment on both sides of the road, while military vehicles accompanied it. Citizens lined up along the road, some of them waving to the body wearing red “scarves,” before it reached the host of the Al-Boualwan clan in Ramadi, where the funeral was held after the afternoon prayer.
Participants in the funeral told Asharq Al-Awsat that the ceremony took place without firing shots or raising slogans, despite the state of anger that accompanied the funeral.
The Iraqi ambassador to Lebanon, Muhammad Redha Al-Husseini, announced on Friday evening that the embassy had received Alwani’s body from the Lebanese authorities, at the request of his family, after completing the medical and judicial procedures related to determining his identity, and matching the DNA samples taken from the body with the sample of his son, who arrived in Beirut for this purpose.
The Security Media Cell had called for waiting for the results of the investigations and not to give the case any other dimensions before completing it, stressing the continuation of coordination between the Iraqi embassy in Beirut and the Lebanese judicial and security authorities, in cooperation with the Iraqi National Intelligence Service.
Political repercussions
The killing of Al-Alwani sparked widespread interaction in Iraq, especially in Anbar Governorate, to which he belongs. The circulation of the case was accompanied by political debates and comments of a sectarian nature on social media sites, amid demands to reveal the party responsible for his killing.
Kamel Al-Dulaimi, the former head of the Iraqi presidential office, told Asharq Al-Awsat that the circumstances of the crime and its objectives still need to be revealed clearly and transparently before public opinion, stressing the responsibility of the Iraqi state to reach the truth.
He added that the case requires security and judicial cooperation between Iraq, Lebanon and Syria, to reach the perpetrators and those behind them, especially if the investigations require cross-border coordination. He warned that the sectarian rhetoric that accompanied the incident reflects the continued dealing with national issues from narrow perspectives, saying that the issue relates to the sanctity of Iraqi blood, and should not be reduced to the affiliation of a person or province.
For his part, legal researcher Saif Al-Saadi, who is from Anbar Governorate, said that Al-Alwani was not just a former MP, but rather a prominent tribal, social and political figure in the governorate, adding that the funeral reflects the extent of sadness and anger in the cities of Anbar.
Al-Alwani is considered one of the figures who emerged during the Anbar protests in late 2013. He was arrested in December of the same year, and a death sentence was issued against him in 2014 after he was convicted of killing two soldiers during the clashes that accompanied his arrest. He was released in April 2025 after more than 11 years in prison, after the family of one of the victims withdrew their complaint and benefited from the general amnesty law.
While Alwani's body returned to Anbar, the answer to the most important question, regarding the motives for his killing and the party behind it, is still linked to what the Lebanese investigations will reveal and cooperation with the Syrian authorities.
A convoy of heavy machinery belonging to the Military Engineering Department of the Syrian Arab Army moved, on Saturday, to the Manbij area in the eastern countryside of Aleppo (northern Syria) to participate in a project to remove earthen berms and fill trenches in 255 cities and villages, with a total length of 841 kilometers, in order to end the state of field division that those areas suffered from during the years of conflict, and with the aim of consolidating state authority and reintegrating the areas administratively and economically.
The Syrian Ministry of Emergency and Disaster Management, which supervises the “Echo of Resilience” project in cooperation with Aleppo Governorate, explained that the campaign aims to remove traces of military fortifications and their remnants, rehabilitate the affected areas, and open roads to facilitate movement between cities and villages, “in a way that contributes to enhancing the service reality and supporting the return of normal life and stability to the targeted areas.”
The work of the second phase of the project began last Thursday in the city of Manbij and its countryside, and is scheduled to take seven months as part of the efforts aimed at enhancing security and safety by clearing areas of mines and war remnants, facilitating the return of people to their homes, as well as enabling farmers to reach their fields and resume their agricultural activity.
This step comes as a continuation of the first phase of “Echo of Resilience,” which began at the beginning of last July in the northern countryside of Aleppo, specifically in the Azaz region and its surroundings (7 km from the border with Turkey). Its conclusion was announced on November 12, after the completion of cleaning 202 kilometers of dirt berms and trenches, which contributed to reconnecting about 33 villages and towns and facilitating the movement of civilians in them.
The implementation of the second phase of the project in Manbij and its countryside acquires special political and geographical importance, given the nature of the region, which represented, before the fall of the previous regime, a hot point of meeting and contact between three conflicting military forces. The “Syrian Democratic Forces” (SDF) and the “Manbij Military Council” took control of the city and its surroundings, versus the Turkish-backed “Syrian National Army” factions in the north and west, and the forces of the former regime and its Russian and Iranian allies in the south.
This positioning resulted in the digging of hundreds of kilometers of trenches and the establishment of double barriers and minefields along four main axes, which included the course of the Al-Sajur River towards Jarabulus in the north, the vicinity of the town of Al-Arima towards Al-Bab in the west, and the Abu Cave area towards Deir Hafir in the south, all the way to the vicinity of the “Tishreen Dam” and the “Qara Cossack Bridge” on the west bank of the Euphrates River in the east. The aim of dismantling these barriers is to reconnect vital arteries and commercial routes between eastern and northern Aleppo, and to liberate agricultural lands that have remained isolated or prohibited for many years.
The “Echo of Resilience” project, in its two phases, coincides with the implementation process of the January 29, 2026 agreement signed between the Syrian government and the SDF, which aims to end the division, integrate the regions administratively and economically, and extend state control over the entire Syrian territory, in addition to ensuring the return of the forcibly displaced and displaced people to their homes after creating appropriate conditions.
In this context, the sweeping of the berms in the Azaz region and its surroundings, which was a hot line of confrontation with the Tal Rifaat and Afrin regions, represented a field guarantee to practically end the geographical lines of contact and reconnect the Syrian geography with each other, according to what the supervising authorities confirmed to the Syrian News Agency (SANA).
Observers of Syrian affairs believe that the dismantling of fortifications by Syrian army units in a strategic area like Manbij “sends clear political messages stating the consolidation of the state’s field control and the reduction of militarization in populated and agricultural areas, which reflects positively on border security and revitalizes the regional trade movement.”
