Introduction to the evening news 20-07-2012

It seems that the holy month of Ramadan that kicked off today will be crucial, not only in Syria, but in many concerned countries in the region.         

In Syria, the bombing of the national security headquarters can be considered as a landmark; in fact the killing of the Crisis Management Cell’s staff coincided with dramatic military developments as border crossings between Syria and Turkey on one hand and Iraq on the other, fell into the hands of the Free Syrian Army.         

The aftershocks of this bombing are still being felt. At a time when a funeral was held for Rajha, Shawkat and Turkmani, Hisham Bekhtyar was announced dead, after succumbing to his injuries. While one of the media outlets announced that Maher Assad participated in the funeral, the Syrian media did not mention his name among participants.        

Diplomatically, the statements of the Russian ambassador in Paris caused a hubbub, prompting Damascus to deny them immediately. The Russian ambassador said that President Assad approves of a “civilized” transition of power, before Syria denied it, nipping possible interpretations in the bud.         

However, a Russian sign might spur another wave of analyses; Russia’s Interfax news agency quoted a military and diplomatic source as saying that Russia has decided to postpone the delivery of the attack helicopters shipment to Syria until the situation there goes back to normal.         

Aside from Syria, in Saudi Arabia, Prince Bandar bin Sultan came back to the spotlight as he was appointed Saudi Arabia's new spy chief to succeed Prince Muqrin. This appointment means that a new phase has begun in the Syrian-Saudi and Saudi-Iranian relations. In Lebanon, the repercussions of the Syrian events began to show rapidly through the influx of around 30,000 Syrian displaced, according to U.N. statistics.       

Separately, two major security developments emerged today, possibly leading to an internal and external debate:         

First, the Pentagon announced that the attack that took place in Bulgaria targeting Israeli tourists bears the fingerprints of Hezbollah.          

Second, a security source told LBCI that a Hezbollah official was summoned for interrogation in relation to the assassination attempt against MP Boutros Harb, but he refused to cooperate.