Today's recommended special report reads like the plot of a spy novel. My colleagues revealed the competing schemes from exile in Moscow, where ex-intel chief Kamal Hassan and Assad cousin Rami Makhlouf are spending millions of dollars to build fighting forces that would lead a revolt along Syria’s coast.

They are also vying for control of a network of 14 underground command rooms stocked with arms and ammunition that were built in the dictatorship’s last days. Syria's government has deployed another former Assad insider – a childhood friend of the new president – to neutralize the plotters.

This is the latest special report in our Syria After Assad series.

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