Idlib

Growing chaos in the liberated areas of northern Syria is convincing some members of the Syrian opposition that the country will become a "failed state" unless an orderly political transition begins soon to replace President Bashar al-Assad . This stark analysis is contained in an intelligence report provided to the State Department last week by Syrian sources working with the Free Syrian Army (FSA). Describing the situation in the area from Aleppo to the Turkish border, where Assad's army has largely disappeared, the report...

BEIRUT — Rebels occupied Sunday parts of a military air base in northern Syria after days of fighting with government troops who have been defending the sprawling position for months, activists said. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said rebels moved deep inside Mannagh air base, near the border with Turkey, despite fire from government warplanes. The Aleppo Media Center says rebels captured a tank unit inside the base and that the base commander, Brig. Gen. Ali Salim Mahmoud, was killed.

BEIRUT — Rebels occupied Sunday parts of a military air base in northern Syria after days of fighting with government troops who have been defending the sprawling position for months, activists said. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said rebels moved deep inside Mannagh air base, near the border with Turkey, despite fire from government warplanes. The Aleppo Media Center says rebels captured a tank unit inside the base and that the base commander, Brig. Gen. Ali Salim Mahmoud, was killed.

BEIRUT — A Syrian government airstrike on a town in the country's northwest killed at least 20 people Saturday, shattering storefronts, setting cars ablaze and sending a giant plume of black and gray smoke into the sky. President Bashar al-Assad's air force has been one of his biggest assets in the two-year-old civil war, and he has used warplanes and helicopters to try to check rebel advances, although the regime also frequently hits civilian areas....

Most of the injured Syrians who check into the volunteer-run recovery center here stay only a few weeks, maybe a month. As soon as they regain strength and mobility, they find temporary housing in Turkey or return home to fight against the Syrian regime. A line of new patients waits to take their place. Then there are those living on the ground floor: the paralyzed children, mothers and fighters who have been here for months and probably will not leave any time soon. Their spinal cords were severely damaged...

ALEPPO, Syria — A shadowy jihadist organization that first surfaced on the Internet to assert responsibility for suicide bombings in Aleppo and Damascus has stepped out of the shadows and onto the front lines of the war for Syria's cities. Here in Aleppo, the al-Nusra Front for the Protection of the People of the Levant, widely known as the Jabhat al-Nusra, is fielding scores of fighters, some of them foreigners, in the battle for control of Syria's commercial capital,...

BEIRUT —An Arab League committee traveled to Damascus on Thursday to discuss the logistics of a planned mission to monitor an increasingly violent uprising and the response of the Syrian security forces, which has been widely condemned as disproportionately brutal. Following the imposition of sanctions by the Arab League, the government of President Bashar al-Assad agreed Monday to implement a plan for hundreds of observers to enter the country. They are set to report on a...

BEIRUT — The United Nations' human rights chief said Wednesday that more than 60,000 people have been killed in the bloody conflict in Syria , a figure that far exceeds even estimates given by opposition groups after nearly two years of fighting. "The number of casualties is much higher than we expected and is truly shocking," U.N. Human Rights Commissioner Navanethem Pillay said, according to Reuters news service. The tally, which Pillay said was based on an "exhaustive" five-month analysis in which...

BEIRUT — A Syrian government airstrike on a town in the country's northwest killed at least 20 people Saturday, shattering storefronts, setting cars ablaze and sending a giant plume of black and gray smoke into the sky. President Bashar al-Assad's air force has been one of his biggest assets in the two-year-old civil war, and he has used warplanes and helicopters to try to check rebel advances, although the regime also frequently hits civilian areas....

ALEPPO, Syria Leading the fight in Sakhour on the eastern side of this embattled city is the Tawafuk Battalion of the Free Syrian Army. It reports to a new coordinating body known as the Military Council, according to Mustafa Shabaan, the acting commander of Tawafuk. But wait a minute: A young fighter named Thaer tells me there are six or seven other battalions fighting in Sakhour, too, in what many claim is the decisive battle for Aleppo. Who commands these disparate fighters?

Most of the injured Syrians who check into the volunteer-run recovery center here stay only a few weeks, maybe a month. As soon as they regain strength and mobility, they find temporary housing in Turkey or return home to fight against the Syrian regime. A line of new patients waits to take their place. Then there are those living on the ground floor: the paralyzed children, mothers and fighters who have been here for months and probably will not leave any time soon. Their spinal cords were severely damaged...

Growing chaos in the liberated areas of northern Syria is convincing some members of the Syrian opposition that the country will become a "failed state" unless an orderly political transition begins soon to replace President Bashar al-Assad . This stark analysis is contained in an intelligence report provided to the State Department last week by Syrian sources working with the Free Syrian Army (FSA). Describing the situation in the area from Aleppo to the Turkish border, where Assad's army has largely...

BEIRUT — The United Nations' human rights chief said Wednesday that more than 60,000 people have been killed in the bloody conflict in Syria , a figure that far exceeds even estimates given by opposition groups after nearly two years of fighting. "The number of casualties is much higher than we expected and is truly shocking," U.N. Human Rights Commissioner Navanethem Pillay said, according to Reuters news service. The tally, which Pillay said was based on an "exhaustive" five-month analysis in which...

The Syrian opposition took a big step forward this month by forming a broad political coalition that includes local activists who started the revolution. But the opposition's military command is still a mess, and until it's fixed, jihadist extremists will keep getting more powerful. As I wrote after my trip inside Syria in early October, a stronger command-and-control structure is crucial in creating an opposition force that can accomplish two essential tasks: defeating President Bashar al-Assad and maintaining order in...

ALEPPO, Syria Leading the fight in Sakhour on the eastern side of this embattled city is the Tawafuk Battalion of the Free Syrian Army. It reports to a new coordinating body known as the Military Council, according to Mustafa Shabaan, the acting commander of Tawafuk. But wait a minute: A young fighter named Thaer tells me there are six or seven other battalions fighting in Sakhour, too, in what many claim is the decisive battle for Aleppo. Who commands these disparate fighters?

ALEPPO, Syria — A shadowy jihadist organization that first surfaced on the Internet to assert responsibility for suicide bombings in Aleppo and Damascus has stepped out of the shadows and onto the front lines of the war for Syria's cities. Here in Aleppo, the al-Nusra Front for the Protection of the People of the Levant, widely known as the Jabhat al-Nusra, is fielding scores of fighters, some of them foreigners, in the battle for control of Syria's commercial...

BEIRUT — Syrian troops fought intense battles Friday with hundreds of fellow soldiers who have turned their weapons against the government of President Bashar al-Assad, revealing the increasingly militarized nature of an uprising started months ago by peaceful protesters. Across the country, tens of thousands of demonstrators took to the streets as they do each Friday, braving gunfire by government forces. At least 11 protesters were killed and scores wounded, human rights groups said.

GUVECCI, Turkey — Security forces fanned out through villages and towns in Syria's northern province of Idlib on Thursday, randomly arresting men and boys older than 16 as the regime of President Bashar al-Assad worked to silence a center of anti-government demonstrations. In this border region, where thousands of Syrian civilians have fled to havens in Turkey, Turkish officials were preparing to send food, clean water, medicine and other aid to thousands more civilians stranded on the Syrian side.

BEIRUT — Tens of thousands of reenergized opponents of the Syrian government gathered Friday for demonstrations on a second day marked by relatively low levels of violence, but the U.N. Security Council was unable to agree on a mission to monitor further implementation of a peace plan. The protests that now habitually take place after Friday prayers were much anticipated this week, coming 36 hours after a cease-fire mandated in the plan put forward last month by U.N.-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan, which also requires the...

NEW YORK — The U.N. Security Council called upon Syria on Thursday to "urgently and visibly" halt its attacks on opposition targets as special emissary Kofi Annan told the U.N. General Assembly that Syrian "military operations in civilian population centers have not stopped. " The 15-nation council's demand was aimed at bolstering Annan's efforts to secure a cease-fire that would end the government's year-long crackdown on dissent and prevent a descent into all-out civil war. It...