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The Free Syrian Army is the main opposition army group in Syria. It is composed of defected military officers and soldiers of the Syrian Army that have been active during the 2011 Syrian uprising. The leader of the men, who identified himself as Colonel Riyad al-Asad, announced that the FSA would work with demonstrators to bring down the system and declared that all security forces attacking civilians are justified targets. - Source: Wikipedia

Syrian President Bashar Assad will not end the two-year-old civil war that has killed more than 80,000 Syrians as long as he is winning on the battlefield, and anyone who thinks otherwise is "delusional," Sen. John McCain said Thursday.
Syrian President Bashar Assad's army and its Lebanese Hezbollah allies seized control of a strategic town near the border with Lebanon on Wednesday, dealing a significant blow to the rebels and raising alarm that it now could unleash reprisals against civilians.

Syria's army and Lebanon's Hezbollah militants recaptured the strategic border town of Qusair Wednesday, cutting off Syrian rebels from an important route for reinforcement and resupply.

Hundreds of Syrian rebels have poured into a besieged town near the border with Lebanon in preparation for a "great battle" against President Bashar Assad's forces and their Lebanese Hezbollah militant allies, the Syrian opposition said Friday.

The Syrian rebels' top military commander says more than 12,000 Lebanese Hezbollah militants have infiltrated Syria and are fighting alongside President Bashar Assad's forces.

As international discussions on Syria's civil war loom, Sen. John McCain, an open critic of the Obama administration's approach to the civil war, on Monday became the highest-ranking U.S. official to slip into Syria and meet with the forces seeking to overthrow the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad.

Sen. John McCain visited rebels in Syria Monday, making him the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit the war-torn country in more than two years.
Syria's civil war turned into a regional conflict when Israeli warplanes bombed a Syrian military base over the weekend to stop weapons from going to Lebanese terrorists, expanding the warring factions and changing "the rules of the game," as one analyst said.

Authorities in Syria discovered on Sunday the bodies of at least 566 civilians and rebel soldiers who were killed during a six-day slaughter, various media reported.

The military wing of Hamas has upped its support for Syrian rebels fighting to topple President Bashar Assad and is now providing training.

One of the top Democratic lawmakers on foreign policy is preparing to introduce a bill that would authorize President Obama to begin sending arms directly to rebels fighting to overthrow Syrian President Bashar Assad — legislation that would open the way for significantly deeper U.S. involvement in Syria's bloody civil war.
The U.S. and several European allies reportedly are warming to the idea of shipping nonmilitary aid to rebels fighting in Syria, but one top Democratic lawmaker plans to introduce a bill that would go further by authorizing arms transfers to those fighting to oust Syrian President Bashar Assad.

As Secretary of State John F. Kerry met in Berlin with his Russian counterpart, American and European officials said Tuesday that the Obama administration is close to deciding whether to provide direct assistance to rebel forces in Syria.

Turkey's Islamist prime minister, barred from seeking a fourth term, is exploring ways to create a strongman presidency and run for the powerful new office next year, but critics fear his political engineering could undermine the country's secular democratic tradition.

Russia and the United Nations called Thursday for the resuscitation of a peace initiative for Syria that never got off the ground when it was proposed months ago because both parties to the conflict rejected it.