Syria, Syrian Rebels | featured news

France on Tuesday became the first European country to recognize the newly formed Syrian rebel coalition, going beyond other Western pledges of support.

Syrian opposition groups have signed an initial agreement to form a new coalition of forces fighting to end the rule of President Bashar al-Assad, a Syrian delegate at talks in Doha said on Sunday.

Syrian rebels capture a key oilfield in eastern Deir Ezzor province, activists say, the first time such a facility has been taken.

Syrian authorities on Thursday sent text messages over cell phones nationwide with a message for rebels fighting President Bashar Assad's regime: "Game over." The messages signed by the Syrian Arab Army also urged the rebels to surrender their weapons and warned the countdown to evict foreign fighters has begun. The texts appear to be part of the regime's psychological battle against the rebels, but are highly unlikely to have any effect on fighters intent on toppling Assad.

More foreign fighters claiming allegiance to al-Qaida have reportedly joined rebels in war-torn Aleppo, deepening the regional implications of the conflict in Syria. According to Zeina Khodr, a journalist with news channel Al Jazeera, "Arab fighters from Saudi Arabia and Egypt who didn't want to be filmed" were operating in the city. Some reportedly claimed allegiance to al-Qaida.

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 rebels claim to have shot down a Syrian MiG fighter jet, while Syrian state-run media say a pilot ejected from a warplane after a technical failure, the Associated Press reports.

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.

Thomson Reuters said its blogging platform for Reuters News was hacked, resulting in multiple false posts to its website, including a fake interview with a Syrian rebel army leader.

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.