Syrian President Bashar Assad has gained what's perhaps his most significant strategic victory in the nearly nine-year-old Syrian civil war: the recapture of the all-important M5 highway. It is arguably one of the most coveted prizes in Syria’s civil war, and after eight years of fighting, Syrian President Bashar Assad has got it back. The Damascus-Aleppo highway, or the M5, is known to Syrians simply as the “International Road.” Cutting through Syria's major cities, the motorway is key to who controls the country. Assad gradually lost control over the M5 from 2012, when various rebel groups fighting to topple him...