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.

Lebanon‬, 05-05-2015: Former Prime Minister Saad Hariri attacked Hezbollah Tuesday over its preparations for an anticipated large-scale battle in Syria's Qalamoun region against Nusra-led rebels, saying the fight is meant to protect the Syrian government, and not Lebanon.

“Media channels and some leaders in Lebanon have been ringing the bells for the Qalamoun hills battle, while the Syrian regime is silent,” Hariri said in a statement released by his media office.

Sheer terror and unbearable suffering has forced many civilians in Aleppo underground to escape the relentless aerial bombardment of opposition-held areas by Syrian regime forces, according to a new report published Tuesday by London based rights group, Amnesty International.

Death everywhere’: War crimes and human rights abuses in Aleppo details the horrendous war crimes and other abuses being committed in the city by regime forces and armed opposition groups on a daily basis, and concludes that some of the government’s actions in Aleppo amount to crimes against humanity.

Yadoudeh, Daraa province, 05-05-2015: A large number of civilians, including women and children, have been killed in regime warplanes’ latest bombing of homes in the town of Yadoudeh in Daraa province with TNT-filled barrel bombs earlier today, with dozens more injured, many critically.

Moadamiyeh‬, ‪Damascus‬ province, 04-05-2015: Regime helicopter gunships have dropped eight TNT filled barrel bombs on western parts of Moadamiyeh in a period of less than ten minutes, resulting in a number of casualties.

This latest attack on the town, now under regime bombardment and crippling siege for over two years, coincides with the outbreak of heavy fighting between FSA forces and regime troops at the regime checkpoints.

Report and video footage from: Dani al-Qappani in Moadamiyeh, Moadamiyeh Council