News

Arab League Establishes Council Of Ministers For Cybersecurity

Secretary General Ahmed Aboul Gheit stressed the significance of increased cooperation as cyber threat levels intensify.

Published

3 years ago

September 12, 2023

Nour Nasir

arab league establishes council of ministers for cybersecurity

AFP

Officials at the 160th session of the Council of the Arab League — held in Cairo — have welcomed the decision to establish a Council of Ministers for Cybersecurity.

The council aims to document and develop cooperation between Arab states in all aspects related to cybersecurity, which has become a growing threat to national and regional stability.

Saudi Arabia proposed the decision, and as such, the council’s general secretariat and executive office will be based in Riyadh.

Ahmed Aboul Gheit, secretary-general of the Arab League, stressed the importance of heightened cooperation in cybersecurity, explaining that regional stability and economic growth would be impossible without joint action from all Arab nations.

Assistant secretary-general Hossam Zaki was in agreement with Gheit, stating, “The council aims to develop […] and coordinate efforts between Arab countries in all aspects related to cybersecurity issues. The field of cybersecurity has become a major pillar of any security system, and there cannot be economic development, for example, without the provision of cybersecurity, with all its elements for society and citizens”.

Initially, the council will seek to develop cybersecurity at all economic and legislative levels by proposing policies, standards, and initiatives that will apply to all participating states.

Also Read: The Largest Data Breaches In The Middle East

According to US consulting firm Frost & Sullivan, the Middle Eastern cybersecurity market will be worth over $30 billion by 2030, representing a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of nearly 20% as regional governments increasingly seek to protect their infrastructure and data.

The report revealed that the UAE and Saudi Arabia are expected to take the lead in cybersecurity adoption due to the favorable economic conditions and startup-friendly regulations that have made them popular locations for tech companies and innovators.

News

Visa’s Return To Syria Starts With A Test And A Bank In Lebanon

Foreign visitors will be the first users to benefit, but whether Syria’s own banks and cardholders follow is still an open question.

Published

2 weeks ago

August 27, 2026

Dana Saadeh

visa's return to syria starts with a test and a bank in lebanon

Visa is returning to Syria. Its first live international card transaction in the country was a test rather than a launch, and the milestone event ran through a Lebanese bank.

The acquirer (the bank on the merchant’s side of a card payment) was Fransabank Lebanon, with Paymera as the other named partner. Nadim Moujaes, who heads a Fransabank Group subsidiary, describes the test as both the culmination of “longstanding efforts to link Syria back to international payment networks” and “the first step in a larger path”.

Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa makes the first electronic payment in Syria using a @Visa card at a store in Damascus, following the lifting of US sanctions on Syria. pic.twitter.com/lpAN7nQ6Fc

— Tech Magazine (@TechMGZN) August 27, 2026

“We are excited to have successfully tested live transactions today as we plan to enable international visitors to use their Visa cards while in Syria,” says Leila Serhan, Visa’s senior vice president and group country manager for the North Africa, Levant and Pakistan region. Although a significant first step, that plan doesn’t come with a hard date for when a visitor’s card will work normally.

Mohammed Safwat Raslan, governor of the Central Bank of Syria, says the test paves the way for international card acceptance in Syria and that maintaining strong compliance, risk management and operational controls will remain essential. Serhan likewise stresses that Visa has worked within applicable legal, regulatory and compliance requirements. For a test transaction, it seems there was a great deal of attention paid to the rules, with the entire operation being carefully managed.

Also Read: Lebanon’s 5G Era Begins With 150 Stations And A $1M Budget

The test is the latest step in a sequence that began in December 2025, when Visa announced a strategic roadmap to support Syria’s integration into the global digital economy. In February 2026 it hosted its first industry gathering of banks, ecosystem partners and policymakers in Damascus and, the same month, signed an agreement with Syria’s Ministry of Communications and Information Technology in San Francisco.

Michel Kattouah, Paymera’s CEO, called the test “the return of international card acceptance,” but while that’s positive news, there’s no word yet on when a Syrian bank will issue a Visa card to a Syrian customer.