AS GOVERNMENT FIGHTERS launched a wave of dawn raids across Syria this weekend, it was tempting to wonder to whom they were sending a message.
In Homs, a city in the west, convoys of pickup trucks carrying masked gunmen tore through the Christian quarter, detaining more than 70 suspected members of Islamic State (IS), the largest such sweep since Ahmed al-Sharaa and his supporters took power last December.
But this was as much about impressing America as it was rooting out the remnants of the jihadist group.
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