Photos released by Syrian media show assault rifles, RPGs and ammunition, in apparent second instance this month of authorities thwarting arms transfer

Undisclosed weapons seized by Syrian border security were being smuggled out of city near Damascus, says border authority - Anadolu Ajansı

It highlights how the new leaders are seeking to interdict smuggling and show the region it is serious. There is likely some implicit messaging in this to Israel as well that the Jewish state can trust the new government in Syria to stop the flow of weapons to its enemies.

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The United Nations refugee chief says some 200,000 refugees have returned to Syria from neighboring countries since the government of Bashar Assad was overthrown last month.

Analysts, however, said Salam and Aoun have a unique opportunity. The collapse of the al-Assad regime, a constant meddler in Lebanese affairs, the weakening of Iran and the willingness of the international community to provide foreign aid and backing to Lebanon’s new leaders mean there is support for a reform agenda that wasn’t previously there.

Syria's de facto leader Ahmed al-Sharaa said on Thursday his country is ready to welcome UN forces into the UN established buffer zone with Israel.

Since Assad’s fall in the first week of December, Israel has destroyed a large proportion of Syria’s strategic stock of weapons so that they do not fall into the hands of Islamic State and other hostile forces. And Israel has unilaterally seized the Syrian side of Mount Hermon and the United Nations demilitarized zone adjacent to the Golan Heights.

From this brief mandate, Syria inherited a parliamentary system modeled after France’s, but political parties were little more than masks for clans and tribes. Disillusioned, many intellectuals and officers sought salvation in nationalist dictatorship or a union with a Greater Arab Nation.

UN Syria envoy Geir Pedersen was in Damascus for the second time since Assad's ouster for talks with the country's de facto leader Ahmed al-Sharaa.

In the following decades, Syria used its section of the railway to transport people ... Slogans praising Assad and the Lebanese Hezbollah militant group, a key ally of the ousted leader, can still be seen on the walls. “We will kneel and kiss wherever ...

A key opportunity lies in Mediterranean natural gas deposits, which could provide economic relief and energy security for Lebanon and the world as a whole.