U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has wrapped up perhaps his last Middle East as America's top diplomat, with the aim of preventing Syria from spiraling out of control after the sudden ouster of President Bashar Assad.

Blinken was one of several senior U.S. officials traveling across the region in the Biden administration's final weeks amid deep uncertainty in Washington and abroad over how Donald Trump will approach the Mideast when he takes office on Jan. 20, 2025.

A Syria war monitor said Israel launched strikes early Saturday targeting military sites in Damascus and its countryside, in the latest such raids since rebels brought down Bashar al-Assad almost a week ago.

"Israeli strikes destroyed a scientific institute" and other related military facilities in Barzeh, in northern Damascus, and targeted a "military airport" in the capital's countryside, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Syria’s interim government is calling on the U.N. Security Council to take action to compel Israel to immediately stop its attacks on Syrian territory and withdraw from areas it has penetrated in the north in violation of a 1974 Disengagement Agreement.

In identical letters to the council and U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres obtained Friday by The Associated Press, Syria’s U.N. Ambassador Koussay Aldahhak said he was acting “on instructions from my government” in making the demands. It appeared to be the first letter to the U.N. from Syria’s new interim government.

The U.S. military has transported out of Syria an American who had disappeared seven months ago into former President Bashar Assad's notorious prison system and was among the thousands released this week by rebels, U.S. officials said Friday.

Travis Timmerman, 29, was flown to Jordan on a U.S. military helicopter, according to two U.S. officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing operation.

After insurgents toppled Syrian President Bashar Assad this month, many senior officials and members of his dreaded intelligence and security services appear to have melted away. Activists say some of them have managed to flee the country while others went to hide in their hometowns.

For more than five decades, the Assad family has ruled Syria with an iron grip, locking up those who dared question their power in the country's notorious prisons, where rights groups say inmates were regularly tortured or killed.

Veteran documentarian Alex Gibney, who in a decades-long career has tackled many a thorny issue, wasn't planning a film about Israel — until one day last year, when a stunning leak fell into his hands.

The leak turned out to be more like a deluge.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Friday in Baghdad that Washington was committed to Iraq's security and would help prevent a resurgence of the Islamic State group following Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad's overthrow.

Blinken, speaking after talks with Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, said he reaffirmed "our commitment to working with Iraq on security and always working for Iraq's sovereignty, to make sure that that is strengthened and preserved".

King Hamad has told Syrian rebel leader Abu Mohammed al-Jolani that Bahrain is ready to cooperate with the new authorities, the official BNA news agency reported Friday.

It said that in a letter addressed to Jolani using his real name, Ahmed al-Sharaa, the monarch said Bahrain, current Arab summit president, was ready to "continue consultations and coordination with Syria".

An American who disappeared seven months ago into former Syrian President Bashar Assad's notorious prison system said early Friday he was released by the "liberators" who arrived in Damascus a day after the longtime ruler fled the capital.

Travis Timmerman called his release a "blessing" when he spoke to The Associated Press from a hotel room in Damascus, where he arrived late Thursday. He was among the thousands of people released from Syria's sprawling military prisons this week after rebels reached Damascus, overthrowing Assad and ending his family's 54-year rule.

With the overthrow of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, many in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights say they want peace and a return to Syrian control.

Kamil Khater, a barber in the Druze Arab town of Majdal Shams, said: "We, the Syrians... want peace with everyone, including Israel."