Anti-government Protest, Political Unrest | featured news

Despite a security crackdown, demonstrators hold a 'day of defiance' against President Bashar Assad in a dozen cities after Friday prayers. Witnesses, online videos and tweets report gunfire by government forces.

Syrian army troops backed by tanks and helicopters on Saturday took a prominent mosque that had been controlled by residents in a besieged southern city, killing four people, a witness said.

A military court in Bahrain sentenced four Shiite Muslim protesters to death on Thursday for the killing of two policemen last month during demonstrations against the Sunni Muslim-ruled government ...

A mass protest calling for sweeping changes in Syria’s authoritarian regime turned bloody Friday, with the government and protesters both claiming to have sustained heavy casualties in a restive southern city as the country’s three-week uprising entered a dangerous new phase.

Security forces and plainclothes gunmen opened fire on crowds of Yemenis marching through a southern city Monday in an intensifying crackdown against the uprising.

Syria's president appointed a new prime minister Sunday, state television reported, as angry protesters gathered for the funeral processions of four demonstrators killed on Friday.

On a stage once commanded by his brutal father, President Bashar Assad blamed foreign conspiracies for Syria's unrest in a national speech Wednesday that sought to steel his family dynasty against a rebellion similar to those that have toppled regimes across the region.

An "extraordinary number" of security forces flooded Daraa on Monday, patrolling streets and guarding government buildings in an apparent attempt to stave off further protests, a political activist in the city told CNN.

Protesters and Syrian government forces clashed Saturday in the coastal city of Latakia, where demonstrators set fire to the offices of President Bashar Assad's ruling Baath party, an activist said.

Violence erupted as tens of thousands of Syrians took to the streets across the country, in the most widespread unrest in years.