The Justice Department has charged a Syrian-born U.S. citizen with spying on Americans demonstrating against Syria's Assad regime and passing that information on to Syria intelligence officers to intimidate the protesters.

Syria's president threatened a regional war if the West intervenes in his country's uprising.

The State Department is investigating charges that Syrian diplomats are spying on Syrian anti-government demonstrators in Washington and other U.S. cities in order to intimidate their relatives in the restive Middle Eastern nation.