Polls opened Monday in Syria with more than 7,000 candidates vying for 250 seats in parliament amid mounting international pressure on President Bashar al-Assad to step aside and end the violence that has seen thousands die. The opposition urged Syrians to boycott the elections, saying a vote for any of the candidates amounted to a [...]
A deadline for Syrian troops to withdraw from cities came and went Tuesday morning, but opposition activists say the regime’s onslaught rages on. At least 12 people, including three children, were killed in mortar and missile attacks on the besieged city of Homs, the opposition Local Coordination Committees of Syria said. One opposition activist in [...]
As diplomats at the United Nations slammed Syria, violence continued to rage on the ground and residents wondered out loud what the implications of total war might be. “Everyone we’ve been talking to … believes that the country is heading towards, or already is in, a full-blown war, and recovering from that is going to [...]
Thousands of Syrians waving Russian flags cheered Russia’s foreign minister as he arrived in Damascus Tuesday for talks with embattled President Bashar Assad on the country’s escalating violence. Sergey Lavrov’s visit comes days after Syrian allies Russia and China vetoed a Western- and Arab-backed resolution at the United Nations that would have condemned the Assad [...]
The U.N. Security Council will take up a draft resolution this week that calls on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to step down and transfer power. The move follows news that the Arab League suspended a mission to monitor whether al-Assad was abiding by an agreement to end a brutal crackdown against anti-government protesters. Arab League [...]
Four tanks and seven armoured vehicles have been destroyed by military defectors in Zabadani, according to US-based Syrian dissident Ammar Abdulhamid. He points several videos claiming to show an army bombardment of the town and its aftermath. He also highlights this clip purporting to show one of the tanks destroyed by the Free Syrian Army. [...]
Another senior figure in Syria has defected. Imad Ghalioun, a member of the Syrian parliament who represented the central city of Homs, said he has joined the opposition. Homs is “disaster stricken” and has been subjected to a number of human rights violations, he told al-Arabiya, according to the rival network al-Jazeera. It is highlighted [...]
Arab League officials meet in Cairo on Sunday to discuss their Syria mission amid escalating tension and a growing international outcry over the unrest that has killed thousands. Syria has failed to comply with efforts to end the 10-month-long violent crackdown against protesters, and the League should implement action against President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, rights [...]