Here is our summary of events in Syria on Thursday, from Richard Spencer, Middle East Editor, Nabih Bulos in Beirut and Ruth Sherlock in Washington:
• Iran was on Thursday night moving up its ground forces in Syria in preparation for an attack to reclaim rebel-held territory under the cover of Russian air strikes... Hizbollah, which has come to the Assad regime’s rescue in battle-fronts across the country in the past two years, is being prepared to capitalise on the strikes...
• Sources in Lebanon told Reuters that Iran, which is the main sponsor and tactical adviser to Hizbollah, was sending in hundreds of its own troops to reinforce them. ...Josh Earnest, the White House spokesman, said the move would be an "apt and powerful illustration" that Russia's military actions had worsened the conflict.
• A Hizbollah-backed advance would fit the pattern of Russian air-strikes, which have predominantly targeted those rebels not aligned to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant who currently present the gravest threat on the ground to core regime territory.
• The long-term aim would be to defeat or demoralise the non-Isil opposition, so that Isil became the regime’s only enemy. That would force the West to back President Bashar al-Assad against it. “They want to clean the country of non-Isil rebels, and then the US will work with them as Isil will be the only enemy," the Damascus source said.
• Among the dead from Wednesday’s strikes was said to be a prominent rebel leader in north Homs province, Captain Iyad al-Deek, a former regime officer who defected early in the uprising.
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• The rebels also claimed there were a number of civilians among the dead. "The mosque was virtually destroyed, and there was a body under the ruins, and there were eight wounded, among them a child,” said Tareq Abdul-Haq, a media activist who visited Jisr al-Shughour after the Russian bombing. He said a “poor, civilian” neighbourhood had been hit.
