Baghdad: A series of bomb and gun attacks across Iraq killed more than 40 people on Tuesday, a day after over 70 died in violence targeting majority Shi'ites that has stoked fears of all-out sectarian war with minority Sunnis.
Nearly 300 people have been killed in the past week as sectarian tensions, fuelled by the civil war in neighbouring Syria, threaten to plunge Iraq back into communal bloodletting.
Ten years after the US-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein, Iraq's Sunnis, Shi'ites and Kurds have yet to find a stable power-sharing deal and violence is again on the upswing.
In the biggest single incident on Tuesday, a car bomb exploded near a Sunni mosque in the Abu Ghraib area of western Baghdad killing 11 people and wounding 21, police and medics said....
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06:34 AM, May 22, 2013
Amman: Lebanese Hezbollah militants attacked a Syrian rebel-held town alongside Syrian troops on Sunday and Israel threatened more attacks on Syria to rein the militia in, highlighting the risks of a wider regional conflict if planned peace talks fail. Activists said it was the fiercest fighting in Syria's two year-old civil war involving Hezbollah, a Shi'ite group backed by Iran which they said appeared to be helping President Bashar al-Assad...
06:23 AM, May 20, 2013
Beirut: Syrian President Bashar al-Assad says he won't step down before elections are held in his war-ravaged country. The Syrian leader's comments, published on Saturday in the Argentine newspaper Clarin, highlight the difficulties the US and Russia face in getting the Assad regime and Syria's political opposition to the table at an international conference envisioned for next month. The country's main opposition group has demanded that these talks lead to...
07:50 AM, May 19, 2013
Geneva: The number of Syrian refugees, who are either registered or awaiting registration, has surpassed 1.5 million, while the actual number is much higher, according to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR). The increasingly widening gap between needs and available resources is a growing challenge, reported Xinhua citing UNHCR's spokesperson Dan McNorton on Friday . "Over the past four months, we have seen a rapid deterioration compared to the previous 20...
10:59 AM, May 18, 2013
Beirut: The United States chided Russia for sending missiles to the Syrian government as plans for a peace conference promoted by Washington and Moscow were hit by diplomatic rifts over its scope and purpose. Sectarian bloodshed in neighbouring Iraq during Friday prayers, a hacking attack on a Western newspaper by sympathisers of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and defiant comments by a rebel commander filmed eating a slain soldier's flesh were...
07:35 AM, May 18, 2013
London: The website and Twitter feed of British newspaper the Financial Times were hacked on Friday, apparently by the "Syrian Electronic Army", a group of online activists who say they support Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The group posted links on the newspaper's Twitter feed to a YouTube video, uploaded on Wednesday, which purports to show members of the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front Syrian rebel group executing blindfolded and kneeling members...
08:29 PM, May 17, 2013
Washington: President Barack Obama said on Thursday he reserves the right to resort to a range of both diplomatic and military options if he receives conclusive proof that the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad had used chemical weapons in the country's civil war. Obama, at a joint news conference with Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, said there was evidence of chemical weapons use in Syria but that it is...
11:45 PM, May 16, 2013
United Nations: India abstained from voting on the Arab-backed, US supported resolution on Syria in the UN General Assembly, which called for a political transition. India was joined by 58 other countries who abstained in General Assembly voting on the non-binding resolution, which was passed by 107 votes on Wednesday. Twelve countries, including Russia voted against it. In August 2012, a similar resolution had received 133 votes. Pakistan voted in...
07:20 AM, May 16, 2013
United Nations: The UN General Assembly condemned Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's forces and praised the opposition on Wednesday, but a decline in support for the resolution suggested growing unease about extremism among Syria's fractious rebels. While the non-binding text has no legal force, resolutions of the 193-nation assembly can carry significant moral and political weight. There were 107 votes in favor, 12 against and 59 abstentions - a drop in...
03:26 AM, May 16, 2013
Washington: A ghastly video posted online shows how barbaric the Syrian civil war can be. A rebel fighter is seen carving into the body of a Syrian government soldier, cutting out his heart and liver, putting the heart in his mouth and taking a bite, CNN has reported. "I swear to God we will eat your hearts out, you soldiers of Bashar. You dogs. God is greater! Heroes of Baba...
11:20 AM, May 15, 2013
Beirut: At least 94,000 people have been killed during Syria's two-year conflict, but the death toll is likely to be as high as 120,000, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Tuesday. The group said that at least 41,000 of those confirmed killed were Alawites, the sect of President Bashar al-Assad. Rami Abdulrahman, the head of the Observatory, said that the Alawite death figures were confirmed by eight different...
02:06 AM, May 15, 2013
Reyhanli: Turkey accused a group with links to Syrian intelligence of carrying out car bombings that killed 46 people in a Turkish border town, and said on Sunday it was time for the world to act against the government of President Bashar al-Assad. The two car bombs, which ripped through crowded shopping streets in Reyhanli on Saturday, increased fears that Syria's civil war is dragging in neighbouring states, despite renewed...
06:40 AM, May 13, 2013
Quinetra Crossing: A UN sergeant stationed on the Golan Heights said all Filipino UN peacekeepers abducted last week have been released and are in good condition. The peacekeeper, who gave his name as Sgt Ratton, told the reporters on Sunday that his comrades were freed at 08:30 local time. He said that all four are in good health. Four UN peacekeepers were seized along the UN-patrolled demarcation line separating the...
03:25 PM, May 12, 2013
Reyhanli: Twin car bombs killed around 43 people and wounded many more in a Turkish town near the Syrian border on Saturday and Turkey said it suspected Syrian involvement. The bombing increased fears that Syria's civil war was dragging in neighbouring states despite renewed diplomatic moves towards ending fighting in which more than 70,000 people have been killed. The bombs ripped into crowded streets in the early afternoon in Reyhanli,...
06:56 AM, May 12, 2013
Amman: Syrian casualties treated in Turkey show signs of being victims of chemical weapons, the Turkish foreign minister said on Friday, adding to indications that President Barack Obama's "red line" on the use of such arms may have been crossed. Wary of the false intelligence used to justify the 2003 war in Iraq, the United States says it wants proof that chemical weapons have been used before taking any action...
06:56 AM, May 11, 2013
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...
04:06 AM, May 10, 2013
Moscow: Russia and the United States agreed to seek new peace talks with both sides to end Syria's civil war, but opposition leaders were sceptical on Wednesday of an initiative they fear might let President Bashar al-Assad hang on to power. Mindful the conflict may be far from over, Britain has urged fellow European Union states to lift an arms embargo, arguing it would strengthen those rebel groups favoured by...
07:27 AM, May 09, 2013
Moscow/Beirut: Russia and the United States have agreed to bury their differences over Syria and hold urgent international talks to find a settlement that can end the carnage of a civil war that is inflaming the entire Middle East. Visiting Moscow after Israel bombed targets near Damascus and as President Barack Obama faces new calls to arm the rebels, US Secretary of State John Kerry said Russia had agreed to...
05:58 AM, May 08, 2013
Amman: Israel played down weekend air strikes reported to have killed dozens of Syrian soldiers close to Damascus, saying they were not aimed at influencing its neighbour's civil war but only at stopping Iranian missiles reaching Lebanese Hezbollah militants. Oil prices spiked above $105 a barrel, their highest in nearly a month, on Monday as the air strikes on Friday and Sunday prompted fears of a wider spillover of the...
06:10 AM, May 07, 2013
Jerusalem: Israel sought to persuade Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Monday that its recent air strikes around Damascus did not aim to weaken him in the face of a more than two-year-old rebellion. Officials say Israel is reluctant to take sides in Syria's civil war for fear its actions would boost Islamists who are even more hostile to Israel than the Assad family, which has maintained a stable stand off...
05:30 PM, May 06, 2013
