WELL, THAT DIDN’T TAKE VERY LONG: Syria Cease-Fire Is Violated After Less Than an Hour.

Several residents in the divided northern city of Aleppo said via text message that a government helicopter had dropped explosive cylinders on a rebel-held district. And in the southern province of Dara’a, a rebel faction said in a statement that it had killed four government soldiers.

There had been widespread doubts that the cease-fire, timed to coincide with the start of the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, would be respected.

On the other side of the Caliphate, there’s this:

Baghdad hopes that Moscow will continue to provide Iraqi security forces intelligence data on the location of Daesh militants and their capabilities during the upcoming operation to free Mosul, the second largest city in the country seized by the group in 2014, Izvestiya reported, citing an unnamed source in the Iraqi Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Take Izvestia with a grain of salt — or perhaps a shot of vodka — but Iraq knows who the new strong horse is in the Middle East.