Syria, Syrian Rebels | featured news

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.

Since he joined a poorly armed, ragtag rebel group, Syrian fighter Radwan al-Saaour has been mostly on the run, hiding in the woods of Idlib province near Turkey as loyalist forces overran town after town killing people at will.

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.

A surprise assault by Syrian insurgents on a Republican Guard base in Damascus, just a few miles from the presidential palace, elicited a furious military response on Tuesday, with government forces shelling surrounding neighborhoods in an escalation that brought combat in the Syrian conflict close to the heart of the capital.

An increasingly effective Syrian rebel force has been gaining ground in recent weeks, stepping up its attacks on government troops and expanding the area under its control even as world attention has been focused on pressuring Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to comply with a U.N. cease-fire.

Syrian army helicopters and tanks pounded rebel positions in the Mediterranean province of Latakia for a second day on Wednesday, activists said, in the heaviest clashes there since the revolt against President Bashar al-Assad erupted last year.

The rebels say they will wait for the government forces to stop shooting before they agree to reciprocate.

A Gulf plan to funnel millions of dollars a month to Syrian rebels - payments earmarked for salaries for the fighters - could amount to a blank check for the opposition to build up an arsenal against President Bashar Assad's forces, analysts say....

Syrian opposition leaders appealed to international supporters Sunday for “the means to defend themselves” against the regime of President Bashir al-Assad, and said that their liberation struggle was “moving into a new phase.”