After the news spread that Denmark had not renewed the residency of dozens of Syrians, based on its 2019 report that the governorate of Damascus was “safe” for Syrian refugees to return, Syrian human rights activist Mansour Al-Omari set about researching the sources of this misleading report, and to assess what had led Denmar’s government to classify the area as “safe”. He found that one of the main sources in the report was Major General Naji Numeir, director of the Assad regime’s Immigration and Passports Department.

The commander of the Russian military submarine Velikiy Novgorod, General Denis Sobin, has described the periods surrounding the bombing of Syria as "pleasant" moments, expressing his “pleasure” at bombing operations.

The commander made his statement during an interview broadcast on Monday (March 29) on the Russian Ministry of Defence’s ‘Zvezda’ TV channel.

Iranian militiamen reportedly killed a father, mother and two of their children in countryside in eastern Aleppo countryside on Tuesday (March 23).

A report on the Al-Khabur news site reported that the victims were searching for truffles in the vicinity of the village of Al-Mohsen south of the town of Maskana in eastern Aleppo when they were shot and killed by the Iranian militias.

The victims were identified as 52-year-old Muhammad Al-Abed, his 44-year-old wife Raghad, and their two unnamed children, a son aged 19 and a daughter aged 26.

The nature of the relationship between al-Qaeda and Iran is one of the most contentious debates in the counterterrorism community, dividing analysts, policymakers and government officials. The stakes of establishing or disproving the relationship are considerable—meaningful state support is immensely useful to terrorist organizations, especially one being hunted by the U.S. government. Current analytic disagreements are not necessarily about whether al-Qaeda and Iran have a relationship; on that point, there is little room for doubt.

The Russian and Belarusian defense ministers have agreed to establish three joint training centers for military personnel, the Belarusian defense ministry said on Friday.

Two centers will be constructed in Russia – in the Nizhny Novgorod and Kaliningrad regions – with the third in Belarus’ Grodno region, the ministry said.

Via National Post:https://nationalpost.com/pmn/news-pmn/russia-and-belarus-to-create-three...

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.

By Joby Warrick, Washington Post

He was known to the CIA's clandestine service as "the chemist," and few at headquarters would ever know his real name. A professor and a gifted scientist, he had been perfectly positioned for spy work, with a job that entitled him to privileges not accorded to ordinary Syrians, including a broad latitude to travel and to meet with foreigners in the crowded souks and smoke-filled cafes of the old city.

The UK's envoy to Syria, Jonathan Hargreaves, has underlined the British government’s support for a permanent and real ceasefire in Syria, strongly condemning the Assad regime and its Russian backers.

In a statement released today (February 19), Hargreaves said, "Justice and accountability are the key to the urgently needed negotiated settlement to end the conflict."

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.

Russian forces stationed at the Hmeimim airbase in Latakia governorate held a ceremony on Friday (February 5) to unveil a bust of Russian pilot, Roman Filippov, who the Russian government posthumously awarded the title of ‘Hero of Russia’ after his death in Syria.

The commander of the Russian Forces Group in Syria, Major General Alexander Chaiko, claimed at the statue's inauguration ceremony that Major Filippov had “devoted his whole life to the defence of our homeland, performed his military duty and spent his life fighting against terrorists.”