An attack on a Syrian Arab Army bus has caused at least 18 deaths and 27 injuries near Damascus. The explosive, placed inside the vehicle, would have exploded as it passed through the town of Al Sabura, on the highway that connects the Syrian capital with Beirut.
This is the fourth attack against military buses in Syria in the last twelve months. Although today's terrorist action has not been claimed, on previous occasions the authorship was claimed by the Islamic State, which continues to hide in areas of the east of the country outside the control of the Damascus government.
Last June, another bomb killed thirteen soldiers in Raqa and, in March, another fifteen in Palmyra. Just one year ago, the last major attack took place in Damascus, with the same characteristics, with the result of fourteen dead soldiers.
Today's bomb explodes a few hours after army forces clashed with suspected Islamic State (IS) terrorists in the province of Deir al Zur, resulting in fifteen deaths, including soldiers, jihadists and civilians, according to a British intelligence source. According to this same observer, the origin of the fighting would be in a previous attack by IS against two population centers in the desert of Al Bukamal, near the crossing to Iraq.
The shock wave of all this has undoubtedly reached Astana, in Kazakhstan, where precisely today the great supporter of the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, Vladimir Putin, met with two of the great supporters of the armed Islamist rebellion that tried to overthrow him, the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the Emir of Qatar.
Syria has been precisely -along with Libya and Ukraine- one of the three major issues on the table. Without forgetting gas and oil, with Putin offering Turkey the possibility of becoming the great distribution and negotiation hub for Russian gas in Europe - with the Nordstream almost out of the game - thanks to the Turkstream, which entered service in 2020.
The visit of the Qatari Sheikh Al Thani follows that of the Emir of Abu Dhabi, Mohamed bin Zayed, in Saint Petersburg two days ago, where Putin had to lend him his own coat. An image - that of the warmly wrapped president of the United Arab Emirates - that also warns about the cold that is beginning to descend from the northeast and that is an ally of Moscow in the fight it wages with Atlanticist Europe.
Today's diplomatic meeting, in which Iraq, Azerbaijan and other countries from the Caucasus, the Middle East and Central Asia were also represented, represents an oxygen ball for Russia, after last night's setback at the UN General Assembly, where a The vast majority of countries - not including some as populous as China, India and Pakistan - condemned his unilateral referendums on the annexation of southeastern Ukraine.
After saving Bashar al-Assad's regime with its military intervention at the end of 2015 - in which the newly appointed general in charge of the self-styled "special military operation" in Ukraine played a major role - Russia has become an indispensable player in the region. In addition to the only one among the influential that can talk to all parties, from Iran to Israel and from Egypt to Turkey, passing through Qatar or the Emirates.
Especially bothersome for Washington is the spectacular improvement in relations between Russia and Saudi Arabia, which within the OPEC cartel has just reduced oil production by two million barrels. All this, in stark contrast to the ostracism that Joe Biden had promised - after the Khashoggi case - for the "pariah" Mohamed bin Salman, Saudi crown prince and prime minister. The reality of pressing energy needs has dictated otherwise.
Another potentially transformative event, although concrete steps are still pending - which could be imminent - is the reconciliation of Hamas with Syria. The Palestinian organization broke with Bashar al-Assad ten years ago, after positioning itself on the side of the Islamist rebellion championed by the Muslim Brotherhood against his non-denominational and police regime.
Much slower, ambiguous and incomplete is the predicted return to the Damascus fold of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), or at least its Syrian affiliate, rearmed in recent years by the Pentagon - but also by France, the United Kingdom Kingdom and others - with the ostensible objective of combating the Islamic State, which became extinct as a military force four years ago, to be reduced to the status of an obscure terrorist organization.
