Syria

• A drone attack apparently targeting Syria's defense minister struck a graduation ceremony at a military college in Homs, killing at least 100 - but not the minister, who left minutes before the attack.
• No group has claimed the attack yet, but the government blamed opposition fighters "backed by known international forces." There are already reports of retaliatory airstrikes in residential areas of opposition-controlled cities in northwest Syria.
• This was the first major attack on government-held territory in years, and it shattered the veneer of normalcy Pres. Assad has sought to maintain in the areas he controls.

• An Iranian activist, Narges Mohammadi, won this year's Nobel Peace Prize for her work fighting "against the oppression of women in Iran." Ms. Mohammadi is currently oppressed in Iran's notorious Evin prison, where she's serving a cumulative sentence of over 30 years for five convictions.
• On a related note, a strange incident in Tehran is raising comparisons to the death of Mahsa Amini, which kicked off a wave of protests in Iran last year: on Sunday, an unveiled 16-year-old girl, Armita Geravand, entered a subway car on her way to school. Moments later she was dragged out unconscious, and she's been in a coma under tight state security for the five days since.
• The government hasn't released footage from inside the car. Armita's friends who were with her report that the hijab police pushed her during a confrontation over headscarf rules and she hit her head when she fell on a metal object (the government agrees she fell, but says she fainted because she skipped breakfast and her blood sugar was low).
• However, memories of how the government crushed last year's protests - killing over 500 people in the process - are still fresh, and Iranians may be more reluctant to rise up this time.

• There are early reports that Ukrainian drones hit a Russian S-400 air defense system near Belgorod on Wednesday. It would be the first time Ukraine struck an S-400 in Russia.

• Pres. Putin started some rumors about his former ally, late Wagner Group founder Yevgeny Prigozhin.
• Putin said grenade fragments were found in the bodies of Prigozhin and the other Wagner execs and bodyguards who died with him in August and said post-mortem drug and alcohol tests "should have been carried out," hinting that their plane exploded because they were having some kind of explosive rager aboard - and not because he ordered it to be shot down or sabotaged.
• Investigators didn't have time to carry out drug and alcohol tests because the site of the crash was swept up within hours.
• He also said 10 billion rubles ($100 million) in cash and 5 kg (11 lbs) of cocaine were found in Wagner's St. Petersberg headquarters.

• A Slovakian cybersecurity firm accused China of hacking into Guyana's government agencies earlier this year, and said they were seeking information about a money laundering investigation involving Chinese companies. It's not clear whether the hackers succeeded.