🇸🇾 Clashes ongoing between HTS and Druze factions after the Druze militia attacked and killed a security officer

@TabZLIVE

🇮🇱 🇺🇸 🇷🇺 Israel lobbying US to keep Syria ‘weak’ by allowing Russian bases to remain there

🔶️ Israel is lobbying the United States to keep Syria weak and decentralized, including by letting Russia keep its military bases there to counter Turkey’s growing influence in the country, four sources familiar with the efforts say.

🔶️ Turkey’s often fraught ties with Israel have come under severe strain during the war sparked by Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack and Israeli officials have told Washington that Syria’s new Islamist rulers, who are backed by Ankara, pose a threat to Israel’s borders, the sources say.

🔶️ Israel communicated its views to top US officials during meetings in Washington in February and subsequent meetings in Israel with US Congressional representatives, three US sources and another person familiar with the contacts say. The main points were also circulated to some senior US officials in an Israeli “white paper,” two of the sources say.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/report-israel-lobbying-us-to-keep-syria-weak-by-allowing-russian-bases-to-remain-there/