Louai Beshara
Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi held talks with President Bashar al-Assad and other Syrian officials in Damascus Wednesday, with Salehi saying a solution to the country’s ongoing conflict lay “only in Syria and within the Syrian family.” Assad asserted that the regime’s battle “targets resistance as a whole not only in Syria” in what appeared to be a reference to the Iran–Lebanese militant group Hizbullah. Meanwhile, the U.S. Treasury Department announced it had identified 117 Iranian aircrafts bringing weapons to the Syrian government. As Syrian rebels gained control of a key border post in Turkey Wednesday, activists claimed Assad’s regime is destroying homes in Damascus and neighboring suburbs, pointing to footage of flattened buildings.