President Obama faces mounting bipartisan pressure for the U.S. to become more deeply involved in Syria's civil war, with a key Senate panel pushing through legislation Tuesday that would clear the way for the administration to supply weapons to rebels fighters in the Mideast nation.
Syria's President Bashar Assad emerged from the shadows to announce in a publicly televised interview that he's not stepping down, and he's not caving to "terrorists" who were tearing apart his country.
Syrian President Bashar Assad said in a newspaper interview Saturday he won't step down and will instead "face the storm," raising new doubts about a U.S-Russian effort to get Assad and his opponents to negotiate an end to the country's civil war.
The pro-Syria regime group, Syrian Electronic Army, hacked into the news site and Twitter feed of the Financial Times on Friday.
Russia has sent more than a dozen war ships to patrol the waters near Syria, U.S. military spokesmen said on Friday.
Even after two years, President Obama's Syria policy remains hard to understand. On the one hand, he talks about isolating Bashar Assad's Syrian regime and drawing "red lines" on its use of chemical weapons. On the other, he accedes to Russian President Vladimir Putin's demand for another regional conference that surely will give Mr. Assad a longer lease on life.
Rising persecution of minority religious communities in Pakistan, Iran and Syria — and other nations — is a serious threat to stability in those countries and their neighbors, a panel of specialists said at a Hudson Institute forum this week, showing how religious tensions can have larger political ramifications in hot spots around the world.
Shortly after Israeli warplanes struck inside Syria to take out Iranian missiles intended for Hezbollah, Iranian Defense Minister Gen. Ahmad Vahidi said, "The attack carried out by the Zionist regime will shorten this fake regime's life."
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in a meeting Thursday at the White House, is expected to urge President Obama to arm the Syrian opposition and enforce a "no-fly" zone in an effort to topple Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime.
