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Seven members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp were killed when missiles levelled the consular office next to Iran’s embassy in the Syrian capital. While other IRGC officers have been killed by Israeli strikes in Syria in recent months, this attack appears the most serious yet.

The potential for Iran’s 'Axis of Resistance' militia network to destabilise the wider region has been manifest in an alarming acceleration of attacks on bases hosting United States troops in Iraq and Syria by IRGC-backed militias.

The 'Axis of Resistance' bloc of state and non-state actors, Shia and Sunni militias, has been long in the making, as Iran's revolutionary elite has sought to project its influence via a disparate group of organisations ranged across the Middle East. Its components are of differing sizes and capabilities, and their links to Iran also vary.

Bashar Al-Assad's regime in Syria has been readmitted to the Arab League after more than a bloody decade on the sidelines, after Saudi Arabia and the UAE orchestrated a vote in favour ahead of a 19 May summit in Jeddah. Regional opposition to Syria hasn't disappeared, but Qatar and Kuwait decided not to stand in the way of readmission, in a further indication of Riyadh's new-found desire to flex its diplomatic muscles whatever western allies might think.

Iran officially welcomed Syria’s return to the League of Arab States, but the eagerness with which Damascus is accepting the renewed Arab hospitality may be a cause for concern in Tehran, which has been one of the Assad regime’s few consistent supporters throughout the civil war.

Syrian foreign minister Faisal Mekdad travelled to Jeddah for talks with his Saudi counterpart Prince Faisal Bin Farhan, as part of a concerted attempt by Riyadh to move the regime of President Bashar Al-Assad back into the Arab mainstream. Prince Faisal then travelled to Damascus for talks with Assad, the first such trip by a Saudi foreign minister since 2011.

Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al-Thani has avoided a potential private prosecution in the UK courts over allegations that the Qatari state had funded violent groups in Syria.

A mooted plan for Qatar to supply natural gas to Lebanon via Jordan and Syria further ties President Bashir Al-Assad’s regime into regional developments and could add to the momentum for Damascus to be readmitted to the League of Arab States.

The activities of Russian mercenaries in Syria and other warzones are gaining new attention. The Fontanka website reported that a group of elite troops known as ‘OSM’, led by former Spetsnaz officers and recruited by the ChVK Vagnera (named after its commander, codename Wagner) private military company (PMC), were acting with official backing. Fontanka claimed there is evidence that ChVK Vagnera exists from documents signed by President Vladimir Putin himself. The ability of Russian and Serbian ‘Slavonic Corps’ mercenaries (Hong Kong-registered PMC Slavonic Corps Ltd was reported operating in Syria in 2013) to slip in and out of Russia to fight in Ukraine and other conflict zones has been noted over several years.

The Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) monarchies have emerged as significant regional players in the past decade, reflected in Oman’s invaluable back channels for Washington to talk to Iran, Qatar’s global projection of soft power and military capacity in Libya and the Levant, and the increasing tendency of Saudi Arabia and the UAE to dictate policy with air power. The trend towards greater regional autonomy has been encouraged by the United States’ reluctance to commit to Middle Eastern conflicts during Barack Obama’s presidency, and the hesitancy of new powers such as China or a weakened Russia to provide a counterweight to the declining Pax Americana.

In the very early hours of 23 September, Gulf Arab nations joined the United States in a series of bombing raids on jihadist targets in Syria. The raids were intended as much to show regional accord as to inflict damage on the so-called Islamic State (ISIL or ISIS). Fighter planes from the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain took part, along with Jordan, while Qatar played a “supporting role”, understood to have involved its Mirage jets conducting damage assessments after the event.

The Syrian National Coalition (SNC) elected a new president to succeed Ahmad Jarba on 9 July, in the latest effort to inject momentum into an increasingly marginalised opposition. Hadi Al-Bahra is viewed as a smoother operator than Saudi-backed Jarba, who had served the maximum two six-month terms. While Jarba’s rural tribal connections (as a member of the cross-border Shammar tribe) worked well for the SNC’s chief funder Saudi Arabia, Bahra is viewed as the better diplomat; as head of the SNC’s Geneva peace talks negotiating team, he is also well known internationally.

The Syrian National Coalition (SNC)’s Saudi-backed leadership made its first official visit to Washington in May, seeking greater US support in its war against President Bashar Al-Assad. SNC President Ahmad Jarba and his military chief, Brigadier General Abdulillah Al-Bashir – who heads the Supreme Joint Military Command Council (SMC) – came away from their 5-14 May meetings with promises of $27m of new non-lethal assistance, and that the SNC’s representative offices in the US would now be considered foreign missions. The move – which does not allow the SNC to take over the Syrian embassy, or assume the status of government – is certainly a boost to the SNC’s credibility.

The rotating presidency of the League of Arab States returned to Doha in 2013, after only a year out of Qatari hands. The league’s 24th summit meeting began at the Sheraton hotel in the Qatari capital on 26 March, giving Qatar another platform to demonstrate the regional leadership it aspires to – which it immediately did, by installing the Syrian opposition in Damascus’ seat. The last Arab summit, held in Baghdad on 29 March 2012, was notable for the absence of high-level Gulf delegations. This time, it was a different story. The GCC royals were in town.

There have long been rumours that Qatar wanted Moaz Al-Khatib, the leader of the opposition Syrian National Coalition, out (GSN 943/5, 937/5). Al-Khatib announced his resignation on 24 March, just a few days after Ghassan Hitto was elected prime minister of the Coalition’s interim government. At least nine members of the Coalition – the main Syrian opposition umbrella grouping, also known as the National Coalition for Syrian Opposition and Revolutionary Forces – suspended their membership after Hitto, viewed by many as Qatar’s candidate, was elected in the early hours of 19 March at a typically fractious opposition meeting in Istanbul.