London: Britain said on Thursday it was "very likely" the Syrian government had used chemical weapons, and Turkey announced it was stepping up testing of people fleeing the Syrian civil war for traces.
US Secretary of State John Kerry expressed gratitude to Russia for its willingness to try to arrange a "Geneva two" conference to negotiate an end to the conflict, in a sign of a thawing of the long diplomatic chill between Washington and Moscow, Syria's strongest ally.
Damascus and the head of the Arab League welcomed the apparent rapprochement between the United States and Russia this week. Syrian opposition leaders are skeptical of an initiative they fear might let President Bashar al-Assad hang on to power.
Kerry, in Rome, said however a transition government would have to have the "mutual consent of both sides, which clearly means that in our judgment President Assad will not be a component of that transitional government"....
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04:06 AM, May 10, 2013
Syrian troops stepped up an offensive against rebels in the north on Wednesday, following explosions targeting security forces and a university campus that killed more than 100 people in two days. ...
02:46 AM, Jan 17, 2013
Libya: An Islamist militia was driven out of the city of Benghazi early on Saturday in a surge of protest against the armed groups that control large parts of Libya more than a year after the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi. A spokesman for Ansar al-Sharia said the group had evacuated its bases in Benghazi "to preserve security in the city". In a dramatic sign of Libya's fragility, after sweeping through...
08:59 PM, Sep 22, 2012
Beirut: The Syrian regime threatened on Monday to use its chemical and biological weapons in case of a foreign attack, in its first ever acknowledgement that it possesses weapons of mass destruction. Foreign Ministry spokesman Jihad Makdissi vowed, however, that Damascus would not use its unconventional arms against its own citizens. The announcement comes as Syria faces international isolation, a tenacious rebellion that has left at least 19,000 people dead...
06:28 PM, Jul 23, 2012
Damascus: Syria's 16-month bloodbath crossed an important symbolic threshold on Sunday as the international Red Cross formally declared the conflict a civil war, a status with implications for potential war crimes prosecutions. The Red Cross statement came as UN observers gathered new details on what happened in a village where dozens were reported killed in a regime assault. After a second visit to Tremseh on Sunday, the team said Syrian...
07:56 AM, Jul 16, 2012
Paris: French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Wednesday said that Syria's leader is acting like a murderer and should be sent to the International Criminal Court. With diplomatic efforts to end the bloodshed in Syria faltering, the French leader urged humanitarian corridors to allow refugees out and aid in to the country. "We must obtain humanitarian corridors, and for that we must unblock the Russian veto and Chinese veto" at the...
03:46 PM, Mar 14, 2012
New Delhi: After Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, the West's war eyes are now firmly fixed on Iran and Syria. International reportage on the Syrian crisis has drastically changed its character over the last fortnight or so. The entire discourse on the urgency to "stop the brewing humanitarian crisis' has changed tracks. The new discourse as outlined by the West and its lackeys in West Asia and North Africa now is...
07:43 AM, Feb 29, 2012
Damascus: Military forces in Syria have launched a fresh offensive on several towns in the northwestern province of Idlib. This came even as the world leaders attacked Syria's referendum as the Constitution that could keep President Bashar al-Assad in power until 2018, was voted in. The European Union imposed new sanctions against the country amidst ongoing clashes. Opposition groups said at least 125 people were killed on Monday. The UN...
08:36 AM, Feb 28, 2012
Damascus: The counting of votes for the Syrian referendum on a new Constitution amidst the escalating violence has begun and the results are expected on Monday. At more than 14,000 polling stations all over Syria, 14 million eligible voters were out to approve or disapprove President Bashar Assad's draft Constitution proposals. It is claimed that if the proposal is approved, Syria will transform into a multiparty democracy, with direct elections...
07:28 AM, Feb 27, 2012
Cairo: Islamists appear to have taken a strong majority of seats in the first round of Egypt's first parliamentary vote since Hosni Mubarak's ouster, a trend that if confirmed would give religious parties a popular mandate in the struggle to win control from the ruling military and ultimately reshape a key US ally. Final results, expected on Friday, will be the clearest indication in decades of Egyptians' true political views...
08:47 AM, Dec 02, 2011
United Nations: UN chief Ban Ki-moon has welcomed the transition of power in Yemen, saying all sides should now honour their commitments to immediately bring to an end all violence and refrain from further provocations. The political settlement agreement, signed by President Ali Abdullah Saleh, was an "important step for the people of Yemen in moving their country forward towards a better future," Ban's spokesperson said in a statement. In...
08:55 AM, Nov 24, 2011
Cairo: Egypt's Health Ministry says 20 people have been killed since Sunday in clashes between police and protesters demanding the country's military rulers quickly transfer power to a civilian government. The ministry on Monday also said that some 1,750 people have been wounded in the clashes since they began on Saturday. The ministry did not specify whether the dead and wounded were protesters, or whether the figures included policemen and...
02:54 PM, Nov 21, 2011
Cairo: Egyptian soldiers and police set fire to protest tents in Cairo's Tahrir Square and fired tear gas and rubber bullets in a major assault on Sunday to drive out thousands demanding that the military rulers quickly transfer power to a civilian government. At least 11 protesters were killed and hundreds were injured. It was the second day of clashes marking a sharp escalation of tensions on Egypt's streets a...
08:57 AM, Nov 21, 2011
London: Syria's embattled President Bashar al-Assad has warned that Western military action against his country could cause an 'earthquake' that could create 'another Afghanistan' and burn the whole of the Middle East. His warning came hours after UN chief Ban Ki-moon asked Syria to 'immediately' end attacks on civilians, saying the violence is 'unacceptable.' Western countries "are going to ratchet up the pressure, definitely," Assad told the UK's Sunday Telegraph...
03:37 PM, Oct 30, 2011
Beirut: Western powers risk causing an earthquake across the Middle East if they intervene in Syria, President Bashar al-Assad said, after protesters called for foreign protection from a crackdown in which 3,000 people have been killed. Assad's warning came ahead of Syrian government talks on Sunday with the Arab League aimed at starting a dialogue between the government and opposition and ending violence which has escalated across Syria in recent...
07:50 AM, Oct 30, 2011
Beirut: At least 31 people were killed across Syria in the latest wave of violence, notably clashes between gunmen believed to be army deserters and troops loyal to President Bashar al-Assad, a Syrian activist group said on Monday. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Sunday's death toll included 17 members of the army and security forces as well as 14 civilians, many of them in the opposition hotbed of...
03:39 AM, Oct 11, 2011
Tripoli: Muammar Gaddafi urged his supporters from hiding to fight on as Libya's new interim rulers met world leaders on Thursday to discuss reshaping a nation torn by 42 years of one-man rule and six months of civil war. "Let it be a long battle. We will fight from place to place, from town to town, from valley to valley, from mountain to mountain," Gaddafi said in a message relayed...
07:07 AM, Sep 02, 2011
Washington: Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi is on the run, his capital all but fallen to rebels, his hometown under siege. Now comes another difficult task for the rebels and the civilian government they are trying to install: capturing Gaddafi before the fugitive dictator is able to mount a revenge assault from hiding or inspire an insurgency that could drag on for years. Gaddafi's wife and three of his children fled...
06:01 PM, Aug 30, 2011
Tripoli: Libyan government tanks shelled parts of central Tripoli on Monday after rebels swept into the heart of the city and crowds took to the streets to celebrate what they saw as the end of Muammar Gaddafi's four decades in power. Tanks emerged from Gaddafi's stronghold in the center of the Libyan capital and were firing shells, a rebel spokesman said. Sporadic gunfire could be heard as world leaders tried...
01:11 PM, Aug 22, 2011
Amman: Syrian tanks and navy ships shelled the main Mediterranean port city of Latakia on Sunday, residents and rights groups said, killing 26 people as President Bashar al-Assad's forces launched an offensive by land and sea to crush protests against his rule. Since the beginning of the fasting month of Ramadan on August 1, Assad's forces have mounted operations across the country to try to suppress protests demanding political freedom...
09:30 AM, Aug 15, 2011
