High-level talks between the US and Ukraine have begun in Saudi Arabia, aimed at ending the war with Russia. Moscow was hit by the largest Ukrainian drone attack of the conflict so far in the early hours of this morning. Kyiv says the strikes should encourage Vladimir Putin to accept an aerial ceasefire. Foul play has not been ruled out as fires continue to burn on the cargo ship and oil tanker which collided in the North Sea yesterday morning. Experts have warned that leaking jet fuel from the US-chartered Stena Immaculate could “devastate” wildlife as it floats towards to the Norfolk coast. Giving children fish fingers for dinner could make them kinder. Researchers who monitored 6,000 boys and girls for two years found that seven-year-olds who didn’t eat fish were 35% more likely to display poor social behaviour, such as not sharing toys or helping classmates. By the age of nine, non-fish-eaters were 43% more likely to be wrong ‘uns.

A new nightmare in Syria

Ahmed al-Sharaa may find that “conquering Syria is an easier task than ruling it”, says Aris Roussinos in UnHerd. When the former al-Qaeda insurgent launched a lightning offensive in northwest Syria in December, President Bashar al-Assad’s feared security forces “simply melted away”, and the sortie unexpectedly escalated into the seizure of Damascus. Western journalists flooded into the capital to hail the “new Syria”. But when armed elements from Assad’s Alawite heartlands ambushed al-Sharaa’s security forces last week, the new government’s “counterinsurgency” efforts quickly degenerated into vicious sectarian reprisals, with hundreds of Alawite civilians dead and brutal footage of summary executions posted online by the perpetrators. Government officials have filmed themselves pushing unguided barrel bombs out of helicopters, just like the old regime they spent a decade railing against.

The question is: how much control does the new government in Damascus wield over the security forces cracking skulls in its name? If the perpetrators of these war crimes are acting under al-Sharaa’s instruction, then all the recent talk of “humane and technocratic governance” by the new regime is balls. If the perpetrators are acting outside the control of Damascus, then al-Sharaa’s grip on power is weaker than many outsiders assumed. For the EU, desperate to prevent a new flow of refugees, humanitarian concerns will likely be “swept under the rug” in the interests of stabilising the new government. The Trump administration, long sceptical of Syria’s rebels, is likely to look more kindly on Israel’s increasing efforts to occupy areas of southern Syria. Ruling a country with such an ethnic patchwork of peoples, and such a “heavily armed periphery”, has always been a nightmare. It’s al-Sharaa’s nightmare now.