Damascus

A Syrian general was assassinated Saturday outside his home in Damascus, the capital, the official state news service said, as violence continued to rage in the central city of Homs and elsewhere in the country. Three gunmen waited for Brig. Gen. Issa Kholi and shot him as he left his residence, the Syrian Arab News Agency reported. The slain general, a senior military physician who headed a Damascus hospital, was believed to have been one of the highest-ranking military officers killed in the almost year-long conflict.

BEIRUT - Even with the commander of the United Nations monitoring mission in place in Syria, explosions and attacks continued Monday as forces loyal to President Bashar Assad and opposition groups appeared no closer to a cease-fire after 13 months of unrest. In the northern city of Idlib, two early-morning car bombings killed at least eight people and injured more than 100, according to state media and activists. The explosions targeted the air force security and other military security buildings in the southern part of the city dominated by government buildings.

BEIRUT - Two weeks after a supposed cease-fire was meant to bring an end to violence in Syria, an explosion Friday ripped through the capital, Damascus, killing at least nine people and injuring almost 30. A suicide bomber in the pro-opposition Midan neighborhood detonated an explosives belt near a school and the Zein Abidin mosque as worshipers were leaving Friday prayers, the Interior Ministry said. Those killed included civilians and law enforcement officers, state media said.

BEIRUT - Two weeks after a supposed cease-fire was meant to bring an end to violence in Syria, an explosion Friday ripped through the capital, Damascus, killing at least nine people and injuring almost 30. A suicide bomber in the pro-opposition Midan neighborhood detonated an explosives belt near a school and the Zein Abidin mosque as worshipers were leaving Friday prayers, the Interior Ministry said. Those killed included civilians and law enforcement officers, state media said.

Syrian tanks and troops moved Sunday to crush resistance in the rebellious suburbs of Damascus, opposition groups reported, bringing the bloody battle that has ravaged the nation for months to the doorsteps of the nation's capital. The fierce fighting reported outside Damascus was the latest sign that Syria's armed insurgency — long concentrated in provincial hotbeds of revolt like Homs, Hama and Dara — has now reached the edge of the city from which the Assad family has ruled Syria in autocratic fashion for more than 40 years.

A special envoy of President Reagan left Damascus on Tuesday at the end of a three-day visit designed to improve relations between the United States and Syria after a lengthy diplomatic chill. The envoy, Vernon A. Walters, a Reagan Administration trouble-shooter and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, met twice with Syrian President Hafez Assad in the first high-level contact between the two governments in a year. Walters told reporters that he and Assad talked for several hours.

Freed American journalist Charles Glass said Wednesday that an increased Syrian effort to bring about the release of other hostages in Lebanon is the only sign of hope for them in the foreseeable future. "I'm told by Syrian and American diplomats in Damascus that the political environment between the U.S.

The United States has "good evidence" that the lone terrorist survivor of the Rome airport massacre last December was trained at a camp in the Syrian-controlled Bekaa Valley of Lebanon, a U.S. official said today. Mohammed Sarham, captured by Italian police after the attack, received "at least marginal" terrorist training in Lebanon, went from there to Damascus and flew on from the Syrian capital to Europe, said the official, who demanded anonymity.

When the Obama administration came to power, it began to dismantle the diplomatic "box" that had been built around Syria, a box meant to isolate it for its destabilizing behavior in Lebanon, Iraq and the Palestinian territories. Administration officials argued that the international will to pressure Syria no longer existed and that an attempt at distancing it from Iran was worthwhile. The United States' gentler approach has included sending senior officials to Damascus, refraining from public criticism of President Bashar Assad and his government, and nominating a U.S. ambassador to Syria for the first time in five years.

As the evening call to prayer sounded through the alleyways of old Damascus, the aging storyteller known as Abu Shadi clambered into an elevated chair at the Nawfara cafe, slipped on a pair of rimless reading glasses and turned to the page where he'd left off. An expectant silence settled over the smoke-filled room, interrupted by the clink of coffee cups and tea glasses. For two decades, Abu Shadi has regaled his audience of shopkeepers, university students and tourists with epic tales of war and romance, heroes and rogues from the classics of Arabic literature.

BEIRUT - The United States and European Union slapped Syria with additional sanctions Monday, as international pressure and a United Nations-backed peace plan have failed to quell the violence in a 13-month uprising. Despite the presence of U.N. monitors in the country, President Bashar Assad's forces have continued to shell cities and shoot at protesters, killing dozens of people Monday, activists said. A day after a small team of observers visited the city of Hama, tanks shelled neighborhoods while security forces and snipers opened fire in other areas where there were protesters.

BEIRUT - United Nations monitors in Syria on Wednesday witnessed government forces shooting at protesters in a suburb of Damascus, the capital, activists said. At least 20 protesters were injured, four critically, and a U.N. vehicle was damaged during the incident in Arbeen, an activist group said. Thousands of residents had surrounded U.N.-marked vehicles to speak with the monitors or to chant slogans critical of President Bashar Assad's government. But soon, activists said, regime forces began shooting at the protesters and throwing nail bombs.

BEIRUT - As the cease-fire in Syria appeared to be unraveling, the U.N. Security Council on Saturday unanimously approved sending as many as 30 unarmed monitors to try to help maintain the fragile truce. Activists reported almost 30 deaths across Syria on a day when the international community sent a rare message of unity that the violence must come to an end. The bloodshed has been intensifying as rebels have increasingly taken up arms in the face of a yearlong crackdown by the government of President Bashar Assad.

The debate on what to do about Syria is intensifying by the day, yet a consensus seems as elusive as ever. The current argument is about whether to arm the rebels. The Obama administration and its allies are opposed despite increasing pressure from influential voices deeply dismayed at the daily carnage. The problem is not with the merits of arming or helping the opposition in Syria but with the international community's approach. Incremental policymaking in response to events on the ground will lead the world down an unwanted path.

The pair of college friends can't suppress a conspiratorial giggle when they talk about the passion that's consuming them. "It's an amazing feeling," says Nawal, as her close friend and fellow schemer, Lina, listens closely in a cafe here in the Syrian capital. "It's like you've broken all the injustice and fear. " Some college students gate-crash parties. These two young women ditch classes and roam the streets of Damascus and its suburbs, searching for protests calling for the ouster of Syrian President Bashar Assad.

The cigarette smoke hovers dense inside the neighborhood cafe. Young patrons knock back beers at greasy wooden tables. A heated debate rages about Syria's revolt. The rotund bar owner labels the rebels baltajiya , or bandits, who are ravaging towns and villages. Demonstrators want only change and freedom, replies a young man in a hooded sweat shirt. Others wrangle over the president and the uncertain future. It is a striking scene for a tightly controlled police state.

BEIRUT - United Nations monitors in Syria on Wednesday witnessed government forces shooting at protesters in a suburb of Damascus, the capital, activists said. At least 20 protesters were injured, four critically, and a U.N. vehicle was damaged during the incident in Arbeen, an activist group said. Thousands of residents had surrounded U.N.-marked vehicles to speak with the monitors or to chant slogans critical of President Bashar Assad's government. But soon, activists said, regime forces began shooting at the protesters and throwing nail bombs.

Five years ago this month, Washington withdrew its ambassador to Damascus to protest the Assad regime's presumed role in the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. For the State Department, which instinctively believes in the power of diplomacy, yanking its top diplomat was equivalent to the nuclear option. But after decades of Syrian targeting of Americans and Washington's regional allies, the Hariri slaying proved a bridge too far. On Tuesday, President Obama nominated Robert Stephen Ford to be the new ambassador to Syria.

Al Deen occasionally let out a goofy, drawn-out laugh when he recalled some of the absurdities he had witnessed during his three months of torture and humiliation in Syria's brutal prisons. Like the blind man accused of being a sniper. The sightless prisoner was subjected to a month of interrogation and beatings, Al Deen said, before intelligence officers finally concluded that he was in fact blind and released him. But he grimaced when he talked about the teenager from the southern province of Dara who had been shot three times, in his shoulder, chest and hand, and was given only a sling — no treatment or pain medication.

Thousands of mourners braved a snowstorm and heavy security presence to march Saturday through a strategic Damascus neighborhood, turning a funeral procession into a bold opposition statement in a Syrian capital that has remained largely loyal to President Bashar Assad. The march, in the upscale Mezzeh district, started out peacefully but turned violent, opposition activists said, as security men unleashed barrages of live rounds. At least one person was reported killed and several injured, though there was no official confirmation.