The Syrian regime’s authorities on Monday granted a rare license to a new telecommunications company that will start operating in nine months, the communications minister said. Wafa Telecom will become Syria’s third telecoms operator in a market currently controlled by Syriatel and MTN. Iyad al-Khatib said in a press conference that he hoped that the new company will “improve the reality of cellular communications in Syria, especially after its infrastructure was damaged” in the country’s civil war. He said that the new firm was locally funded and estimated it would cover at least 30 percent o…