Hayʼat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which rules Syria from Damascus under Jolani, is still a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization under US law. The only change which happened at the end of the Biden administration was that the US $10 million bounty on Jolani's head was removed, at a moment Western officials have engaged the new regime in Damascus on a diplomatic level.

But The Washington Post has just revealed that American intelligence officials met with HTS representatives and passed them classified intelligence information. This happened during the tail-end of the Biden White House.

The Washington Post report begins, "In the chaotic days after the fall of [Bashar] al-Assad, the Biden administration began to engage cautiously with HTS and its leader, Abu Mohammed al-Julani."

"The intelligence exchange with HTS has occurred in direct encounters between US intelligence officials and representatives of HTS, rather than via third parties." The Post continues.

The report adds that this "has involved exchanges between the two sides, in Syria and a third country. It began roughly two weeks after HTS came to power on Dec. 8."

This is being presented by US officials as to combat threats being presented by a resurgent ISIS. For example, there have been recent reported plots against a key Shia religious pilgrimage site on the outskirts of Damascus, the Sayyidah Zaynab Mosque.

"In at least one case, the U.S. intelligence helped thwart an ISIS plot to attack a religious shrine outside Damascus earlier this month, according to the officials," the WaPo report says.

The serious contradiction in all of this is that American companies and citizens are still unable to do business or any interactions with Syrian entities under US counterterrorism laws and due to the long-existent sanctions. And yet, US intelligence is passing on classified information to Syrian leaders despite the terror designation and ongoing sanctions.

The other glaring contradiction is that the separation between HTS and ISIS ideology is thin and slim. Jolani himself was once the personal emissary of ISIS chief pf Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in the early days of the anti-Assad war for regime change.

ING agrees to sell off Russian business, causing €700 million hit to profits

Authored by Tuomas Malinen via substack,

The situation is developing rapidly in Ukraine. Many of the key towns and cities to Ukrainian defence seem to be falling like dominoes. Colonel of the Austrian Armed Forces, Markus Reisner, has warned that the collapse of the AFU (Armed Forces of Ukraine) is likely to be near. Developments on the ground are confirming this with, e.g., Kurakhove and Velyka Novosilka falling in consecutive (rapid) fashion.

Conclusions

I have to say that I am not very optimistic on the prospects peace in Ukraine, currently. President Trump seems to be fixated to the old-dated view that NATO and the U.S. would hold a military upper-hand still. Developments in Iran and especially in Ukraine have already shown this not to be true.

Moreover, I worry on the growing military strength of Russia. Just yesterday, I learned that Russia has started to mass-produce battle-drones which are immune to electronic warfare. The story with Russian military development in a conflict is always the same. First, they screw up massively, then retreat, learn, regroup and strike with unmet fervor.

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The main point to recognize is that the days of American military hegemony have passed...