Middle East, Civil War | featured news

Syria's government and rebels have "chosen the path of war", a U.N. peacekeeping chief said as the world body ended its doomed monitoring mission to Damascus and deadlock persists among world powers over how to contain the spreading conflict.

Syrian forces have pushed rebels back from a strategic district of Aleppo, but skirmishes continued in the city and the United Nations said the conflict engulfing Syria would have no winner.

Armed clashes erupted in at least three Syrian cities on Friday amid reports of a deadly mortar attack on a major Palestinian refugee camp in Damascus, an event that threatened to draw Syria’s displaced Palestinian population into its civil war... Western nations, led by the United States, have accused Russia of helping to sabotage Mr. Annan’s diplomacy and have questioned the need for a United Nations monitoring presence in Syria if there is no viable peace plan to monitor.

Syrian fighter jets fired on rebel positions in the commercial capital of Aleppo on Wednesday, U.N. observers told The Associated Press, a development that could signal a significant escalation in the battle for control of the key city.

The Assad government targets rebel positions. The U.N. says 200,000 people have left the city, but the opposition denies the military is driving out insurgents.

A Russian official suggests Moscow could offer asylum to Syrian President Bashar Assad, if he requests it. Russian officials, who have strenuously resisted U.S.-led efforts to push Syrian President Bashar Assad from power, are beginning to question whether the beleaguered leader can hang on, but say they have little influence over him as rebels take the fight to his country's biggest cities.

The Foreign Ministry spokesman, addressing repeated questions about Syria’s chemical weapons that have arisen in recent days, said the army would only use such weapons in case of an external attack.

Government forces claimed to have retaken a pocket of Damascus, as state television reported that a fourth member of President Bashar al-Assad’s elite circle died of wounds from Wednesday’s rebel bombing.

Syrian government forces struck back against rebels with attack helicopters and shelling around Damascus Thursday after an audacious bomb attack that killed three senior members of the ruling regime.

Syrian state television said Wednesday that a bombing in Damascus killed Defense Minister Daoud Rajha and his deputy, Asef Shawkat, who was the brother-in-law and close confidante of President Bashar al-Assad.