An attack on a bus on the outskirts of Raqqa city in northern Syria on Monday has killed at least 13 government troops and two civilians, Syrian state media said.
The incident took place at 6.30am on a motorway leading to the central city of Homs, the official Sana news agency reported.
A military bus was the target of the attack, said the Syrian Observatory of Human Rights. It reported a different death toll, saying at least 15 government troops were killed.
The UK-based observatory, which has been monitoring the war in Syria since 2011, said the death toll is likely to increase as some troops were critically injured in the attack.
No organisation immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, which the government called a “terrorist bombing”.
Extremists linked to ISIS and Al Qaeda have often staged deadly attacks, including suicide bombings, in the past few years in Syrian cities, including the capital Damascus.
In 2017, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, backed by a US-led military coalition, ousted ISIS from Raqqa, which was the group's Syrian stronghold.
Earlier this month, the SDF said they were ready to co-ordinate with Syrian President Bashar Al Assad's forces in case of a new incursion into northern Syria by Turkey, which seeks to keep Syrian Kurdish forces away from its border.
In recent years, several blasts targeted military buses carrying Syrian soldiers in the capital Damascus. In most of the attacks, explosive charges were attached to the buses before they departed.
After 11 years of civil war, Mr Al Assad has managed to defeat various opposition factions and recapture vast swathes of Syria.
Several Arab countries have also restored diplomatic ties with Damascus. Others still pursue a wait-and-see strategy.
The civil war has killed hundreds of thousands, displaced half of Syria’s pre-war population of more than 22 million people, whether as refugees or internally, and drawn several foreign countries into a multi-sided conflict that involves today many countries including Iran, Russia, the US and Turkey.
Syria’s economy has been heavily battered by the war and related sanctions imposed by the US and the EU, which have kept many foreign investors away.
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
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