HOUSE OVERSIGHT 029690 with the most obvious absence being that of the Muslim Brotherhood, which protested what it considered to be a biased ballot. It remains unclear who will succeed Prime Minister Abdullah Ensur (who submitted his resignation to King Abdullah on January 29th), although analysts and commentators consider it likely that a number of unexpected appointments will be made in an effort to address the growing malaise. Media reports speculate that there are also plans to set up an official channel for communication with the Muslim Brotherhood. Meanwhile, it appears that King Abdullah is seeking to bolster ties with regional allies, perhaps for both political and economic reasons: the King made visits to Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, and Kuwait from January 29th to February 4th. Syria: Israeli warplanes are generally believed to have struck a convoy en route to Lebanon on January 30th, although this has not been confirmed by the government of Israel. The convoy was reported to have been carrying sophisticated antiaircraft weaponry to Hezbollah. The attack—carried out on the outskirts of Damascus—was met by a sharp threat of retaliation from both the Syrian and Iranian governments: a significant indicator of the regional reverberations of the Syrian civil war and the general volatility permeating the region. Despite the lack of progress of an international peace initiative spearheaded by Special Envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, a new plan by Syrian opposition leader Moaz al-Khatib—comprising a dialogue with President al-Assad based on the principle of the regime's departure—offers a glimmer of hope. Upon meeting with al-Khatib on February 3rd, the foreign ministers of Iran and Russia (the closest allies of the al-Assad regime) seem to have agreed to help facilitate this process—an interesting turn of events. The new plan comes as the humanitarian situation continues to deteriorate, although some help is foreseen from the $1.5 billion in pledge