TURKEY - Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has voiced support for the jihadist insurgency in Syria, urging the Islamists to continue their march to Damascus, various media outlets reported on Friday. Militant forces in Syria led by the group Hayat Tahrir-al-Sham, formerly known as Jabhat al-Nusra, last week launched a surprise assault from their base in Idlib, targeting the province of Aleppo. Over the past week, the militants have driven back government forces and captured significant chunks of territory in Aleppo and Idlib, and on Thursday surrounded the key city of Hama.

MIDDLE EAST - Iran is abandoning its Syrian ally following rapid gains made by Islamist rebel forces, who are now closing in on the capital Damascus. “Iran is starting to evacuate its forces and military personnel because we cannot fight as an advisory and support force if Syria’s army itself does not want to fight,” a prominent advisor to the Iranian regime, Mehdi Rahmati, told the New York Times. “The bottom line,” he said, “is that Iran has realized that it cannot manage the situation in Syria right now with any military operation and this option is off the table.” The unspoken reason Iran is leaving Syria is that Israel smashed Iran's proxy Hezbollah, fatally weakening its ability to carry out operations outside of Lebanon. Abandoned by Iran, and with Russia unable to help, Assad's own poorly led and disorganized army won't be able to stem the tide. The Syrian army abandoned the second-largest city, Aleppo, while barely firing a shot. Now the Islamist army is rolling south, headed for Damascus.

SYRIA - As armed rebels have advanced at lightning speed in recent days from the north of Syria toward the capital, Damascus, footage online showed statues of the Assad dynasty — which has kept the country in its authoritarian grip for over 50 years — crashing to the ground. “Syria is the barometer for how power dynamics in the region are changing,” said Mona Yacoubian, head of the Middle East and North Africa Center at the United States Institute of Peace in Washington. “It is in for a period of chaos in a region that is already on fire.” The main regional players — Israel, Iran and Turkey — all have a stake in the outcome, which means that the ripples will affect not just the Middle East, but also global powers like the United States and Russia.

SYRIA - This surprising rebel victory in Syria is being led by the most powerful Islamist group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, a political and paramilitary force. It emerged from the Syrian uprising of 2011 as an affiliate of Al-Qaeda but formally broke ties with it in 2016. For years, its leader Abu Mohammed al-Jawlani has been trying to change his group's image abroad while enforcing strict Islamist rule in the northwest corner of Syria under his control. Rebel forces in Damascus declare the city "free" from long-time ruler Bashar al-Assad as government forces withdraw. Rebels say public institutions will stay under the supervision of the former prime minister until they're officially handed over. Reports say that Assad has left Damascus by plane for an unknown destination.

MIDDLE EAST - Occasionally in history, one individual tilts the course of events through a single incident: think of Gavrilo Princip’s assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914 or George Washington firing the first shots of the Seven Years’ War with his ambush on French forces in the Ohio Valley in 1754. The atrocity ordered and masterminded by Sinwar, the late leader of Hamas, on October 7 last year has proved similarly momentous, its consequences reverberating well beyond the slaughter grounds of the kibbutzim on Gaza’s borders. Each wave has weakened Iran, hurting its regional ambitions of dominance, diminishing its stature and prising loose its network of proxies and clients across the Middle East.

SYRIA - Can Assad hang on? He can count on support from Russia and Iran, but Turkey has hardened its view against the regime. Since the start of the Syrian rebels’ lightning offensive a week ago, Turkey’s role and attitude have been unclear. But President Erdogan was unequivocal on Friday that he wanted them to topple the Assad regime. “The advances of the opposition are continuing,” he said. “Our hope is that this advance in Syria continues without any issues.” He explained that, like so many others, he had tried to reason with President Assad. “I told him, ‘Come, let’s meet to discuss the future of Syria together,’” Erdogan said. “But I never had a positive response.”

USA - Mr Hegseth, the Floridian Republican, also has a conservative military history. “There was no greater honor than knowing I was wearing the cloth of my country when I served in the military, but our nation’s once-proud fighting force has been infected and paralysed by a political agenda,” he said in July 2023. “It is time to rip the woke out of the military and return it to its core mission. We must restore a sense of confidence, conviction, and patriotic duty to our institutions — and that begins with our military.” He announced intentions to oust “woke” generals, end war crimes investigations against American soldiers and remove women from combat roles. The 44-year-old suggested stories about his potential downfall were triggered by Left-wing opposition to his anti-woke agenda.

ISRAEL - Israel warns of a widening of the war against the entire Lebanese state if there are further violations of the ceasefire by Hezbollah. Israel has issued a stark warning that it is preparing to renew and expand its war against the entire Lebanese state if its truce with Hezbollah completely collapses. "If until now we separated the state of Lebanon from Hezbollah... it will no longer be [like this]," he said during a visit to the northern border area.

EUROPE - Michel Barnier’s "political Waterloo" may trigger a "chain reaction" across the financial markets which could send the euro into a downward spiral and pose a threat to the monetary union itself, financial experts have warned.

UK - Strong winds of 80mph and heavy rain will hit the UK this weekend as the fourth named storm of the season arrives. Storm Darragh is expected to last from Friday evening into Sunday, with up to 60mm of rain forecast in some places. It comes as communities are still recovering from the impact of Storm Bert.

EUROPE - Officials in Brussels fear that the curse of the eurozone is about to strike again — and this time it is France on the receiving end. The European Union’s spending limits, “austerity” to many voters, are hardwired into Europe’s single currency and have played a big part in France’s current political crisis as well as the growth of anti-establishment populist movements across the continent. Brussels is closely monitoring the situation in France and, above all, the reactions of the financial markets, which in the past have triggered a sovereign debt crisis by reducing the value of bonds and increasing the cost of borrowing for all eurozone governments. Both France’s situation and political instability in Germany, which also has looming fiscal deficits and insurgent populists, come at a dangerous time for the EU with an incoming Donald Trump presidency, a stalling economy and threats from Russia.

GERMANY - Olaf Scholz is set to appear before a parliamentary committee regarding Germany's biggest tax fraud scandal, which saw the state defrauded by around €36 billion (£30 billion). Scholz, who at the time was the Mayor of Hamburg, faces a grilling over how much he knew of the transactions and whether or not he did enough to address the allegations. The scandal could be a key talking point throughout the election, with Scholz’s political rivals unlikely to pass up the opportunity to bring the leader’s character into question.

UK - Children as young as 12 are being arrested on suspicion of extremism offences, Britain’s most senior counterterrorism police officer has said. Matt Jukes, assistant commissioner at the Metropolitan Police, said there was a “conveyor belt leading children towards extremism” being driven by tech companies “making vast amounts of money” from them. “For all the benefits it brings, the internet has also globalised extremism, accelerated the spread of hateful ideologies internationally and made it possible for anyone with an internet connection to reach into the lives of children halfway round the world.” “Around 20 per cent of ASIO’s priority counterterrorism cases involve young people. In every one of the terrorist attacks, disruptions and suspected terrorist incidents in Australia this year, the alleged perpetrator was a young person."

FRANCE - The French government has collapsed after Prime Minister Michel Barnier was ousted in a no-confidence vote. MPs voted overwhelmingly in support of the motion against him - just three months after he was appointed by President Emmanuel Macron. Opposition parties had tabled the motion after the former Brexit negotiator controversially used special powers to force through his budget without a vote. It marks the first time the country's government has collapsed in a no-confidence vote since 1962. The development will further France's political instability, after snap elections in summer led to no single group having a majority in parliament. Barnier is now obliged to present the resignation of his government, and the budget which triggered his downfall is defunct. No new parliamentary elections can be held until July, so the current deadlock in the Assembly - where no group can hope to have a working majority - is set to continue.

FRANCE - France’s political crisis is worse than normal political crises. Normally when a democratic country passes through turbulence, there is some prospect of the turbulence coming to an end. Not today in Paris. If anything, the downfall of Michel Barnier – toppled in parliament by a no-confidence motion – threatens to set a pattern for what lies ahead. For if Barnier – a moderate of the centre-right with a reputation for courtesy and compromise – was unable to pass a budget, then who else can? The original cause of the crisis has not gone away. It is the division since July of the National Assembly into three roughly equal blocs, none of which is prepared to deal with another. As a result the two blocs that make up the opposition will always be able to unseat the one bloc that forms a government.