Dozens of Iranian regime militia members have reportedly died in the past few days in rural Aleppo from the COVID-19 coronavirus, amid accusations of negligence by the Iranian regime’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) regarding high levels of infections among its members and affiliated militias.

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 town of Qara in the Qalamoun region, in Damascus Countryside Governorate, is reportedly witnessing rising tensions between Assad’s forces and Hezbollah.

According to local activists, the latest hostilities began when Hezbollah fighters stormed the regime-run private Qara Hospital and expelled Assad’s forces from it last week.

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.

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.