Syria, Damascus | featured news

A leading Kurdish political figure was shot to death in northern Syria, while a political dissident was brazenly beaten in the heart of the capital Damascus, activists said.

Syria saw a wave of violence and arrests Sunday as the head of the International Committee of the Red Cross visited Damascus to address issues including caring for the wounded and access to detainees during the government's crackdown on a 5-month-old uprising.

Security forces in the Syrian capital of Damascus intensify checkpoints and patrols to keep an overnight surge of protests from spreading into the heart of the city, a stronghold for President Bashar Assad.

Visa and MasterCard credit cards are no longer valid in Syria under new U.S. sanctions targeting Damascus because of its deadly crackdown on a 5-month-old uprising, officials said Thursday.

Tens of thousands of demonstrators take to the streets outside Damascus, in Homs and elsewhere in response to the lethal military assaults centered in the besieged city of Hama. The growing civilian toll intensifies international condemnation of the Syrian regime.

Syrian refugees continue to flee across the Turkish border to escape violence, as world powers amplify their outrage over the Damascus regime's tough crackdown on peaceful demonstrators.

A new entry to a blog purportedly written by a Syrian-American lesbian living in Damascus asserted the saga was a hoax, as the male writer of the post claimed to have penned it all.

A Syrian site bombed by Israel in 2007 was "very likely" to have been a nuclear reactor which should have been declared, the U.N. atomic agency said in a report, an assertion which may lead to Damascus being referred to the U.N. Security Council.

Reuters correspondent Suleiman al-Khalidi was released by Syrian authorities on Friday, three days after he was detained in Damascus.

Two Reuters journalists were released by Syrian authorities on Monday, two days after they were detained in Damascus.