Afrin‬, ‎Aleppo‬ province, 10-05-2015: Residents of the majority-Kurdish town of Afrin in Aleppo province today staged a protest in solidarity with fellow Kurds in Mahabad in Iran over Iranian security forces' brutal repression of protests in Mahabad and other Kurdish towns and cities in Iran. Protesters in Afrin carried the Free Syrian flag (seen in picture), as well as Kurdish flags, chanting against the Iranian and Assad regimes.

10-05-2015: In preparation for the post-Assad scenario in Syria, Israeli sources have confirmed that the Israeli military is set to launch attacks on “jihadist organisations” operating in Syria after the fall of the Assad regime.

Military affairs commentator Alon Ben-David confirmed that the Israeli army and air force are currently working on preparations for a strategy to defeat a range of jihadist organisations on the assumption that these organisations will turn their weapons on Israel after the fall of the Assad regime.

Hezbollah's al Manar TV has been tirelessly broadcasting triumphal reports of its 'victories' in the Qalamoun region of Damascus province in coordination with Assad's forces. The Tehran-backed militia's media arm hasn't, however, been reporting the less than dignified return to Lebanon of the heaped bodies of Hezbollah mercenaries, killed there while fighting for Assad and Tehran, in the backs of pick-up trucks, as shown in this photograph taken by activists in the area.

Photo from Ahmed Mansour

Latakia, 08-05-2015: Mourning is continuing among the ranks of Assad’s supporters in Latakia and anti-regime sentiments are mounting as the number of bodies of local regime troops being returned after being killed in fighting on various fronts across Syria continues to increase due to the victories by rebel forces who continue to make great progress across the country despite the massive odds against them.

Casting aside U.S. concerns about aiding extremist groups, Turkey and Saudi Arabia have converged on an aggressive new strategy to bring down Syrian President Bashar Assad.

The two countries — one a democracy, the other a conservative kingdom — have for years been at odds over how to deal with Assad, their common enemy. But mutual frustration with what they consider American indecision has brought the two together in a strategic alliance that is driving recent rebel gains in northern Syria, and has helped strengthen a new coalition of anti-Assad insurgents, Turkish officials say.

06-05-2015: The Tehran-backed Lebanese militia Hezbollah has officially opened an office on March 8th Street in Latakia in one of the regime stronghold city’s most affluent neighbourhoods, already recruiting dozens of regime officers, troops and Alawite supporters of Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

A source close to the regime’s ‘Desert Hawks Brigade,’ led by Ayman Jaber, a relative of Assad, confirmed in a statement to Souria.net that “Hezbollah is currently working on rehabilitating the military units in the Syrian leadership and in the Shiite community in particular.”

Syrian dictator Bashar Assad said on Wednesday that troops from the regime's depleted forces would head to the outskirts of a town liberated by rebel forces to help besieged regime soldiers, attempting to justify recent 'setbacks' in the regime's military fortunes as part of normal warfare.

Rebel forces last month captured the town of Jisr al-Shughour in Idlib province, and are making steady progress towards the regime's coastal heartland of Latakia.

The Syrian regime likely decided to execute Rafik Hariri after a tense meeting between the former prime minister and Bashar Assad in August 2004, Walid Jumblatt told the Special Tribunal for Lebanon Tuesday.

“I think that when [Hariri] visited Bashar Assad on Aug. 26, 2004, the death sentence was made then,” Jumblatt told the court.

But for months after the fateful meeting, Hariri thought that diplomacy could mend his fraught relationship with Damascus.