— 🇸🇾/🇮🇷 NEW: 'Iran warned Assad two months ago that HTS was preparing to make a move, but he dismissed the threat. So the Turkish Foreign Minister gave us assurances that nothing will take place, which turned out to be a lie. After HTS entered Western Aleppo, Iran expected Assad to ask for military assistance, and we were fully prepared to oblige with troops and whatever else was needed – but no such request came. After Aleppo fell, it became clear that Assad had no real intentions of staying in power, so we started to engage in diplomatic talks with the opposition, and arranged the safe exit of our troops from Syria. If the SAA does not fight, neither will we risk our soldiers' lives. Russia and the UAE had managed to convince him to step down, so there was nothing we could do.' – Iranian Officials
— 🇸🇾/🇮🇷 NEW: 'Iran warned Assad two months ago that HTS was preparing to make a move, but he dismissed the threat. So the Turkish Foreign Minister gave us assurances that nothing will take place, which turned out to be a lie. After HTS entered Western Aleppo, Iran expected Assad to ask for military assistance, and we were fully prepared to oblige with troops and whatever else was needed – but no such request came. After Aleppo fell, it became clear that Assad had no real intentions of staying in power, so we started to engage in diplomatic talks with the opposition, and arranged the safe exit of our troops from Syria. If the SAA does not fight, neither will we risk our soldiers' lives. Russia and the UAE had managed to convince him to step down, so there was nothing we could do.' – Iranian Officials
Also in the latest update is the ability for users to create a unique @username from the Settings page, providing others with an easy way to contact them via Search or their t.me/username link without sharing their phone number. In 2014, Pavel Durov fled the country after allies of the Kremlin took control of the social networking site most know just as VK. Russia's intelligence agency had asked Durov to turn over the data of anti-Kremlin protesters. Durov refused to do so. Continuing its crackdown against entities allegedly involved in a front-running scam using messaging app Telegram, Sebi on Thursday carried out search and seizure operations at the premises of eight entities in multiple locations across the country. Unlike Silicon Valley giants such as Facebook and Twitter, which run very public anti-disinformation programs, Brooking said: "Telegram is famously lax or absent in its content moderation policy." Soloviev also promoted the channel in a post he shared on his own Telegram, which has 580,000 followers. The post recommended his viewers subscribe to "War on Fakes" in a time of fake news.
from cn
