US President Donald Trump today concludes a historic whirlwind Middle East tour, but the message he leaves behind is louder than any press conference: Saudi Arabia is in ascendance, and Israel — under Benjamin Netanyahu — is being shown the door.

Russia’s ambassador to Turkey, Alexei Yerkhov, on Tuesday offered his country’s help in stabilizing Syria, warning that the country’s unity is under growing threat. Speaking to Turkish media, Yerkhov pointed to worsening sectarian tensions, infrastructure collapse, and expanding Israeli control in the south, adding: “It is clear that the country is experiencing internal divisions, with the potential for these divisions to worsen.”

In a statement that might have been mistaken for satire if it weren’t official policy, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian announced this week that Iran would "pause engagement" with Syria "until stability is restored."

The remark, from an interview with Russia Today, also published by Russian state news agency TASS on Friday, comes just over four months after the collapse of the Assads' bloody regime, propped up by Tehran for almost 14 years.

Britain’s Lord Peter Hain, formerly Tony Blair’s foreign minister, has uncharacteristically expressed concern about human rights in Syria, though only insofar as these extend to the PKK/SDF, which has been reliant on Western military support since 2014.

After the US government announced on Monday (December 9) that it is to impose sanctions on Fawaz al-Akhras, the father of Asma al-Assad, the ‘First Lady of Hell’, now in Moscow with her deposed tyrant husband, attention is turning to the other connections of the Assads and their extended family.

Following a brutal attack at a festival in Solingen, west Germany on Friday night, in which three people were stabbed to death and eight others injured, German police have arrested a 26-year-old Syrian man who reportedly handed himself in and admitted to carrying out the mass killing.

Assad-allied Lebanese PM warns of Lebanon’s “total collapse”, blaming “Syrian displacement crisis”

A Western propagandist for Assad’s regime, hosted on a regime TV talk show in a bid to boost the regime's image, instead unintentionally exposed Assad's media, putting the host in an embarrassing situation, and showing up the program, which is based on using foreign guests to polish Bashar al-Assad's image and put a positive spin on the real situation in the areas controlled by his militias.

Article from Syria TV

Ten years ago today, on Monday, August 20, 2012, as Muslims in Syria and worldwide were celebrating the second day of Eid al-Fitr, bulldozers moved to close all entrances and exits to the city of Darayya in Western Ghouta, so that Assad regime forces and militias could begin a 7-day mass cleansing campaign, in which more than 700 people were killed, including 524 women and children. Documented by name, the regime's militias arrested hundreds and wounded more than 1,500 people in the bombing.

Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad reportedly stated on Saturday, July 2, that Russia’s war on Ukraine and the related political losses, which he said had been incurred by the West due to its “masks being removed” and its “lies exposed” there, constitute the start of a new international balance.