By Baria Alamuddin, Arab News

A remarkable meeting occurred in January between Syrian and Israeli officials at the Russian base near Latakia in western Syria. It appears to have been precipitated by Israeli concerns about the increasing sophistication of high-precision Iranian missiles and drones in Tehran’s satellite states.

The Iranian-backed Afghan Fatemiyoun militias in Deir Ezzor have reportedly begun moving their weapons, ammunition, and rockets to underground tunnels previously dug by the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), better known by the pejorative term Daesh.

In an official sense, at least, the situation on Syria’s borders has hardly changed at all over the past couple years. The Western agenda still excluded any international solution comparable to what the Dayton Accords established in the former Yugoslavia. Russia and its partners in the “Astana process,” Iran and Turkey, oppose any formal efforts to partition the country or cement the existence of a separate Kurdish entity in the north. Moreover, the problems that followed the partition of Sudan have given Western policymakers serious doubts about the viability of such a solution for Syria.

Three local civilians fishing on the bank of the Euphrates River in rural Aleppo governorate were killed by a sniper on Thursday (February 3), with other locals retrieving their bodies from the river.

Political sources in Beirut said the assassination of Lebanese Shia political activist and prominent Hezbollah critic Lokman Slim in southern Lebanon on Thursday (February 4), in an area under direct Hezbollah control, was intended to intimidate the Lebanese people, especially the Shia community, and send a message from Iran’s regime to the new US administration.

An Iranian diplomat who masterminded a failed bomb attack at a rally outside Paris was sentenced to 20 years in jail by a Belgian court on Thursday (February 4) for attempted murder and involvement in terrorism.

Assadollah Assadi, 49, had been attached to the Iranian mission in Vienna when he supplied explosives for the intended atrocity at an Iranian opposition rally in France in 2018. He was denied diplomatic immunity because he was on holiday in Germany when he was arrested.

Iranian regime militias reportedly deployed military reinforcements to Quneitra Governorate in southern Syria on Saturday (January 16, 2021), transferring them from the Syrian capital, Damascus.

According to the local Nabaa news website, reinforcements of the elite forces in the Iranian militia and the affiliated Radwan Brigades arrived in Quneitra from Damascus.

By Dr. Dania Koleilat Khatib, Arab News

Many people adopt new year’s resolutions. They usually involve quitting smoking, losing weight, spending more time with family or just being more positive. However, for Bashar Assad, his resolution seems to be to rebrand himself as a man of peace.

Iran’s regime has reportedly set up well-equipped hospitals for its forces and militias in Al Bukamal in eastern Deir Ezzor governorate, even as the already ravaged health services for the area’s long-suffering residents continue to collapse.