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Last week, Alexander Lavrentiev, Russia’s special envoy to Syria, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Vershinin and Defense Ministry officials visited Baghdad, Beirut and Damascus

The most important result of Lebanon's and Iraq's participation in the Astana process is that all of Syria's neighbors except Israel will be part of one negotiation format. That will give additional weight in the world arena to the decisions made in Nursultan and to Moscow in the diplomatic battle for Syria

An RIA Novosti journalist asked Lavrentiev about the talks in Jerusalem, where Nikolay Patrushev, John Bolton and Meir Ben-Shabbat, the national security leaders of Russia, the United States, and Israel, respectively, are now convening. Many media outlets have reported that the United States and Israel are expected to propose a deal under which Moscow would agree to help curb Iran’s influence in Syria in return for US recognition of Assad as Syria's leader and lifting anti-Syrian sanctions. “The media reports about the alleged work on a deal are, of course, not factually correct," Lavrentiev said June 19. "We can't make any deals. To an extent, we may raise the Iranian issue there, but we will not be negotiating any separate deals behind the backs of our allies." He added that the Jerusalem talks are to address the continued fight against terrorism in Syria and the region.

a resurgence of attacks by the Islamic State group in northern Iraq

In neighboring Syria, IS attacks on security forces, oil fields and civilian sites have also intensified.

the militant group is taking advantage of governments absorbed in tackling the coronavirus pandemic and the ensuing slide into economic chaos.

This intelligence briefing provides extensive, never before reported details on how Iran-linked Iraqi militias are creating a new order to dominate a strategic region of the country that connects Iraq and Syria. Iranian-linked militia groups are taking advantage of the vacuum caused by the collapse of ISIS’s caliphate to begin building security, social, political, and economic structures to dominate this strategic area of Iraq.

Local and provincial politicians cooperate with some of the militias

get their preferred academics put in charge of some of the more important colleges

With anti-Iranian sentiments growing, the Iran-backed Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) have gotten involved in the protests, accusing the West and its regional and local allies of being behind the unrest.

A high-ranking security figure who attended the meeting with Soleimani told Al-Monitor that he advised the attendees to not show any weakness to the protesters, otherwise they would not stop taking to the streets. Referring to the Green Movement's protests in 2009, he said, “In Iran we know how to deal with protesters; we found ourselves in that situation before and succeeded in overcoming it.”

As both the protesters and the government are unwilling to reduce the tension and reach an agreement, it seems the situation in Iraq could escalate further in the next few weeks. This would trigger more violence and cause the country further damage, and open up an opportunity for the PMU to take the security dossier into its hands and deepen its influence in the Iraqi state.

There are credible indications that the Islamic State (IS), after losing its territorial dominance in Iraq and Syria, has designated Turkey as its next reorganization base.

The arrests of so many IS members by Turkish security forces are another sign of IS' intention to create cells in the country.

Iraqi intelligence sources have provided solid information that the brains of IS have moved to Turkey. The United States has tracked the jewelry shops and foreign currency exchanges used by IS in money transfers. The US Treasury Department on Sept. 10 placed al-Haram, al-Hebo, al-Khalidi and Saksouk foreign exchange bureaus and jewelry outlets on its sanctions list for transferring money for IS. 

Prime Minister Abdul-Mahdi has announced he will resign, and Sweden has opened an investigation against Iraqi Defense Minister Najah Al-Shammari, who is a Swedish citizen, for crimes against humanity.

According to Al Jazeera, “protesters are demanding the overthrow of a political class seen as corrupt and serving foreign powers while many Iraqis languish in poverty without jobs, healthcare or education.” Only 36% of the adult population of Iraq have jobs, and despite the gutting of the public sector under US occupation, its tattered remnants still employ more people than the private sector, which fared even worse under the violence and chaos of the US's militarized shock doctrine.

while Iran has gained enormous influence and is one of the targets of the protests, most of the people ruling Iraq today are still the former exiles that the US flew in with its occupation forces in 2003, “coming to Iraq with empty pockets to fill” as a taxi-driver in Baghdad told a Western reporter at the time.

Interviews with doctors and the testimonies of patients and residents living in Syria paint a grim picture of a populace, already battered by nine years of war, now struggling to grapple with a pandemic that has cut short many more lives than those disclosed in official statistics.

Cornered by a collapsing economy, widespread poverty, sanctions, and a shortage of medical supplies and protective equipment after nearly a decade of conflict, Syria appears to be headed into a desultory experiment with herd immunity.

“The way the Syrian government is dealing with corona reminds me of those who leave their houses wearing shorts and t-shirts when it is actually freezing outside,” he said. “What is the point they are trying to make? Should everyone give them a round of applause for not having a lot of corona cases? It’s a pandemic that has hit everywhere, even the most stable and developed countries.”

Iraq as the fifth-most-vulnerable country to climate change. Temperatures have increased by 1.8 degrees Celsius (3.2 degrees Fahrenheit) in three decades, according to Berkeley Earth, well above the global average, and in the summers, the mercury now regularly hits 50 Celsius (122 Fahrenheit)

burning crops and desiccating marshes

As upstream dams in Turkey and Iran weaken the flows of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, a salty tide is creeping north from the Persian Gulf, poisoning the land

From a population of half a million in the 1950s, half a century later saw approximately 20,000 remain. In the 1990s, Saddam Hussein drained the marshes to punish its inhabitants, whom he accused of betrayal during the Iraq-Iran war between 1980-1988. One of his tactics was to build dams, destroying the livelihoods of residents by withholding water. Hundreds of thousands of residents were displaced, and by the year 2000, it was estimated that 90% of the marshes had disappeared.

the United Nations ranked Iraq as the fifth most vulnerable country to climate change on earth

Residents of the marshes have stated that being granted UNESCO world heritage status has done nothing to improve their quality of life. They cite broken promises and negligence from the central government towards their plight, in regard to the constant worsening of their living conditions. These issues have provided predicaments for those whose descendants have inhabited this region for thousands of years.