Foreign Digest: Brazil, Syria, Italy

Syria: Israel has been continuing to target militarily Iranian and Iranian-backed Islamists in Syria, with its latest strike taking out the Damascus airport. Syrian Baathist tyrant Bashar Assad’s regime is a conduit for Iran, the world’s biggest state sponsor of terrorism, for funds, arms and materiel to terrorists harbored by Syria. Syria has been in a civil war for twelve years that has killed several hundred thousand people and caused millions to flee — the most since the Second World War — as Assad has been putting down rebellions by various non-Islamists, Kurds, and Islamist terrorists, such as al-Qaeda and its offshoot, the Islamic State. Syria is backed by Iran and the Russian Federation. The United States and its allies or Turkey back various non-Islamist militias who act primarily against Islamist terrorists, whom the Americans and their allies have also intervened to target directly. Assad and Russia use indiscriminate bombing methods against civilian areas and the Syrian tyrant also uses chemical weapons of mass destruction. Brazil: the new leftwing Brazilian Government is made up of a large coalition of parties that includes two centrist parties with key cabinet positions. Italy: Italy reported last week an increase in various cyberattacks since the Russian aggression against Ukraine last year. The attacks, which target public institutions and critical infrastructure and industry, not only include the usual denial of service, phishing or malware, but also disinformation. Disinformation is a favored tactic of Russian tyrant Vladimir Putin, an ex-Soviet intelligence officer who is trying to restore the Soviet Union.