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Syrian rebels killed 10 soldiers in northern Syria Friday, in the deadliest such attack since a truce deal reached over two years ago, a war monitor and state media said.

Nine soldiers were also wounded in the attack, Syria’s official news agency SANA reported, quoting a military source.

“Around 9:30 this morning terrorists targeted an army bus” in the west of Aleppo province, SANA said, quoting the source.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights had reported earlier on Friday that “pro-regime fighters” died in the assault.

It was not immediately clear whether it was carried out by the area’s dominant jihadist group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), or other rebel forces, the monitor said.

The attackers fired an anti-tank guided missile at a bus carrying pro-regime fighters back to their home villages, Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP.

He said six rebel fighters were killed this month in similar attacks conducted by regime soldiers or allied militia.

Friday’s death toll was the heaviest reported in pro-government ranks from a rebel attack since a truce agreement brokered by Russia and Turkey in March 2020.

Before Russia intervened in the Syrian conflict, the regime of President Bashar al-Assad controlled barely a fifth of the national territory.

With Russian and Iranian support, Damascus clawed back much of the ground lost in the early stages of the conflict, which erupted in 2011 when the government brutally repressed pro-democracy protests.

The last pocket of armed opposition to the regime includes large swathes of Idlib province and parts of the neighbouring Aleppo, Hama and Latakia provinces.

HTS, headed by ex-members of Syria’s former Al-Qaeda franchise, is the dominant group in the area but other rebel groups are also active, with varying degrees of Turkish backing.

The 2020 truce deal has held despite sporadic attacks by both sides, including continued Russian air strikes.

Turkey was keen to cement its influence in northern Syria and avert a new phase of fighting in the conflict that could have caused an unprecedented wave of refugees to flood its border.

Turkey is home to more than 3.6 million Syrian refugees and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, facing rising public anger over the issue, has suggested that his government would encourage a million of them to return.

Here are the latest developments in the war in Ukraine:

– Sweden moves toward NATO membership –

A security policy review by parties in Sweden’s parliament says NATO membership would reduce the risk of conflict in northern Europe, opening the way to a government decision on whether to apply in the next few days.

A special committee in similarly non-aligned neighbouring Finland will announce a formal decision of whether to join NATO on Sunday after the country’s president and prime minister said they want their country to join the alliance following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, however, says Turkey does not have a “positive opinion” on Finland and Sweden joining NATO. 

– G7 ‘strongly united’ –

France says Group of Seven countries are “strongly united” in backing Ukraine until its “victory” against Russia, as Britain urges more weapons for Kyiv to keep up the pressure against President Vladimir Putin.

“It is very important at this time that we keep up the pressure on Vladimir Putin by supplying more weapons to Ukraine, by increasing the sanctions,” British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss says as she arrives for a second day of talks with her G7 counterparts.

– EU pledges extra aid –

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell pledges an extra 500 million euros ($520 million) in military aid for Ukraine at the G7 meeting.

The extra cash will raise the EU’s total military aid for Ukraine to two billion euros, he says.

– ‘Seize Russian assets’: Kyiv –

Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba calls on the major industrialised nations to seize and hand over Russian assets to help with rebuilding his war-torn country, as he meets the G7 club in Germany.

And he warns that any omission of an embargo on Russian oil in the EU’s next sanctions package, due to opposition from Hungary, would spell the end of the bloc’s unity, calling it a “critical moment”.

– Russian reinforcements –

Ukraine’s army says Russian artillery reinforcements have been brought in to shell villages in the northeastern Chernigiv region, near the border with Russia.

Russian troops are trying to establish “full control” over the eastern town of Rubizhne, it says.

Artillery and aviation power are pounding the southern port city of Mariupol, where a number of Ukrainian troops are holding out at a huge steelworks despite a weeks-long siege, it says.

– ‘Tens of thousands’ of Ukrainians taken: US – 

The United States accuses Russia of forcibly taking onto territory under its control tens of thousands of Ukrainians, sending them to “filtration camps” where they are subjected to “brutal interrogations”.

The remarks by Michael Carpenter, the US ambassador to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), support allegations by the Ukrainian government which estimates nearly 1.2 million people have been deported into Russia or Russian-controlled territory.

– ‘Shot in the back’ –

Ukrainian prosecutors are investigating a series of war crimes allegedly committed by Russian forces, including the fatal shooting of two unarmed civilians outside Kyiv, CNN reports.

CNN and the BBC release security camera footage showing two Ukrainian civilians shot in the back by Russian soldiers near a car dealership outside of Kyiv on March 16.

One man died on the spot, the other died shortly after. Prosecutors are investigating the attack as a war crime, CNN reports.

– More than six million refugees –

More than six million refugees have fled Ukraine since Russia’s invasion began on February 24, the UN refugee agency says.

A total of 6,029,705 people had fled Ukraine as of May 11, with Poland hosting the largest number. Women and children represent 90 percent of the refugees.

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The United Arab Emirates’ President Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al-Nahyan died aged 73 on Friday, state media said, after battling illness for several years.

The president of the oil-rich Gulf state, who was rarely seen in public, is likely to be replaced by his half-brother, Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed, who was already seen as the UAE’s de facto ruler.

“The Ministry of Presidential Affairs has mourned to the UAE people, Arab and Islamic nations and the world the death of President His Highness Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al-Nahyan,” the official WAM news agency tweeted.

The ministry announced 40 days of mourning, with flags at half-mast from Friday and work suspended in the public and private sectors for the first three days.

Sheikh Khalifa took over as the UAE’s second president in November 2004, succeeding his father as the 16th ruler of Abu Dhabi, the richest of the federation’s seven emirates.

He has rarely been seen in public since 2014, when he had surgery following a stroke, although he has continued to issue rulings. 

The cause of death was not immediately released.

The UAE, a former British protectorate that was founded in 1971, has gone from desert outpost to booming state in its short history, fuelled by its oil wealth and Dubai’s rise as a trading and financial centre.

The Arab world’s second-biggest economy behind Saudi Arabia has also begun to wield growing political influence, filling a space ceded by traditional powers such as Egypt, Iraq and Syria.

The country of some 10 million also joined military campaigns in Libya and Yemen and broke ranks with much of the Arab world to establish ties with Israel in 2020.

– Frail figure –

The bearded Sheikh Khalifa had cut a frail figure on his occasional public appearances, while his half-brother hosted world leaders and led diplomatic forays abroad.

“The Emirates has lost its virtuous son and leader of the ‘stage of empowerment’ and the trustee of its blessed journey,” Mohammed bin Zayed tweeted on Friday.

“His stances, achievements, wisdom, generosity and initiatives are in every corner of the nation… Khalifa bin Zayed, my brother… may God have mercy on you and grant you access to paradise.”

Sheikh Khalifa, who had no formal higher education, led the UAE as Dubai emerged as a tourism and trade hub and Abu Dhabi pumped oil as a key OPEC player.

He came to the rescue of Dubai when it was hit by the global financial crisis in 2009, extending a multi-billion-dollar lifeline to the debt-laden emirate.

Dubai’s ruler, UAE vice president Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al-Maktoum, said the country was mourning “with hearts filled with sadness”.

The US mission to Abu Dhabi called Sheikh Khalifa “a true friend of the United States”, while Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani also offered their condolences.

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Sweden is widely expected to apply for NATO membership after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sparked a surge in support, but many Swedes are uncomfortable with how quickly the decision-making process has gone.

The country is set to reverse a decades-old policy of non-alignment in the coming days, in lockstep with its neighbour and longtime security ally Finland which is due to officially announce its bid to join NATO on Sunday.  

But for some, it feels rushed. 

“I think everybody would have wanted more time for this because it’s a huge issue,” Stefan Lofven, Sweden’s Social Democratic prime minister from 2014 to 2021, told AFP.

“At the same time, we know that you don’t always get the time that you would like to have.” 

Part of the reluctance among some comes from the fact that neighbouring Finland has so quickly and overwhelmingly made up its mind in favour of joining the Western military alliance.

Finland, which shares a 1,300-kilometer (800-mile) border with Russia and is Sweden’s closest defence cooperation partner, took a historic first step on Thursday when the president and prime minister came out in favour of joining NATO. 

“I also wish that Finland could have waited. It’s not an ideal situation, in the middle of a blazing war”, former foreign minister Margot Wallstrom, a longtime opponent of membership who has grudgingly opened up to the idea, told AFP.

In a dig at Stockholm’s stance, an image of Mr Bean as a Swedish official copying a Finnish official as he signs a NATO membership application has gone viral on social media.

– ‘Neutral’ identity –

Sweden, which was neutral in World War II, has stayed out of military alliances for more than 200 years, though it has forged closer ties with NATO since the 1990s.

Traditionally opposed to NATO membership, Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson’s Social Democratic Party is expected to announce a historic reversal of its position this weekend, seen as paving the way for an application to join the alliance.

The swift turnaround has led to criticism that Stockholm is rushing through its national debate in order to align itself with Finland’s calendar.

“It’s not Sweden deciding the timeline, it’s Finland, because they share a 1,300-km border with Russia”, said Anders Lindberg, political editorialist at Aftonbladet, an independent social democratic daily.

Sweden is otherwise more accustomed to lengthy government-commissioned inquiries on major issues, aimed at fostering debate and building consensus so that decisions are broadly anchored in society.

In contrast, a security review on the pros and cons of NATO membership prepared by the parties in parliament was pulled together in just a few weeks.

The rapid U-turn is also remarkable given that the country “has built its identity on its neutrality” and military non-alignment, Lindberg added.

Support for NATO membership has soared in both Finland and Sweden since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. 

But while a record 76 percent of Finns are in favour of joining NATO, Swedish public opinion is more divided, with recent polls indicating that between 50 and 60 percent back the idea.

– ‘Thank you’ Finland –

Security experts say Sweden waited too long to debate NATO membership.

“The Social Democrats in Sweden have always said: ‘We’ll think about this when Finland joins’… because they thought Finland would never join”, Elisabeth Braw, an expert on Nordic countries’ defence at the American Enterprise Institute, told AFP.

At the same time, Finland’s political leaders were a step ahead, leaving the door open for the “NATO option”, or the possibility of joining quickly if needed.

“The responsibility for this situation rests with those people and those structures who have refused to discuss the matter of NATO until very recently”, said Robert Dalsjo, an analyst at the Swedish Defence Research Institute (FOI).

“It’s going to go fast. But it’s going fast because this is a national security matter… We cannot delay forever because some people have not been interested in this matter before”, he said.

For others, Finland has done Sweden — which has historically and not without some arrogance considered itself a “big brother” to its smaller neighbour — a huge favour by speeding up the decision.

“Without Finland, Sweden would never have joined NATO. Thank you, big brother!”, daily Expressen wrote in an editorial Thursday.