Syria

Authored by Federico Pieraccini via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

After years of undermining the regime of Syrian leader Bashar al Assad, an effort that has seen Israel countenance ISIS training camps near its borders and launch recurring missile strikes on Syrian territory and its army bases while threatening to bomb Assad's palace, the simmering conflict between the two nations broke out into the open once again overnight.

Last November Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his country “won’t allow Islamic State figures or other enemy actors, under the cover of the war in Syria, to set up next to our borders,” but it appears this has already happened, to the point that a sizable ISIS training camp has been set up just across the Golan Heights border with Israel. Though Syrian al-Qaeda has long been a mainstay in southern Syria along Israel's border, this constitutes the first widespread public acknowledgement and confirmation of a significant ISIS base of operations in the Golan regio

A large Turkish army convoy consisting of more than 100 Turkish soldiers, including special forces and commandos, along with at least 30 armored trucks entered Syria’s Idlib region around 22:15 local time, for a joint mission with Russia and Iran to monitor a local de-escalation zone and "pacify al-Qaeda linked militants" there, Hurriyet newspaper reports. While their destination was not clear, local sources told Al Jazeera the troops were headed towards the western part of Aleppo province.

Authored by Andrew Korybko via Oriental Review,

Even in this era of global paradigmatic changes, Saudi Arabia’s shifting grand strategy is perhaps one of the most surprising developments to occur thus far, but the fast-moving Russian-Saudi rapprochement is likely to provoke an Iranian “zero-sum” reaction which could complicate Moscow’s multipolar efforts in managing the “New Middle East”.

Vladimir Putin with King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud at the official greeting ceremony, Moscow, October 5, 2017 (Photo: kremlin.ru)