World roundup: February 3 2025

Stories from Syria, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ukraine, and elsewhere

TODAY IN HISTORY

February 3, 1509: A Portuguese fleet wins a decisive victory over a combined Mamluk/Gujarati armada at the Battle of Diu. After they’d struggled to gain an Indian foothold following the arrival of Vasco da Gama to the subcontinent in 1498, Diu confirmed that the Portuguese weren’t going anywhere and was a definite blow to the Mamluk-Venetian control of the Red Sea spice trade.

February 3, 1966: The unmanned Soviet spacecraft Luna 9 becomes the first man-made object to make a soft, recoverable landing on the moon. The craft then sent back a series of photographs of the lunar surface before losing contact on February 6.

MIDDLE EAST

SYRIA

A car bombing killed at least 20 people near the town of Manbij in northern Syria overnight. According to local authorities the attack hit a vehicle “carrying mostly agricultural workers” and among the dead were at least 11 women and three children. It was the second car bombing in the vicinity of Manbij in recent days and the deadliest single attack in Syria since the fall of the Bashar al-Assad-led government last month.

The Syrian presidential office issued a statement saying that “this crime will not pass without the strongest punishment for its perpetrators,” which sounds reasonable assuming authorities can figure out who the perpetrators were. Nobody has claimed responsibility, and if the target was a van full of farm workers it’s not immediately clear who would be interested in carrying out such an attack outside of maybe an Islamic State cell. The Syrian Democratic Forces group has accused the Turkish-backed militants it’s still battling around Manbij of carrying out the bombing, but to my knowledge it hasn’t offered any evidence and the militants would probably just as readily point the finger at the SDF.