Idlib

In a playground of slides and swings, children dug in the sand next to a string of simple dirt mounds that covered the bodies of at least 40 people. The makeshift graves, which extended nearly from one end of the park to the other, held those killed in the last two weeks of government attacks on this capital of the northern Syrian province of Idlib. "This park used to be for recreation and play. Now it has been turned into a cemetery," a grandmother said, wiping her eyes as she walked along the park's fence.

BEIRUT - Syrian President Bashar Assad issued an order Tuesday freeing up to 7,000 prison inmates, but it was not clear whether the decree would apply to any of those jailed for participation in the rebellion that is seeking to overthrow his regime. Assad issued a combination of commuted sentences and a general amnesty for selected prisoners, according to the official state news agency. The amnesty did not include people convicted of "crimes of treason, espionage and terrorism," the news agency's English-language website said, so it presumably excluded opposition activists, whom the government labels terrorists.

A high-level peace envoy urged Syrian President Bashar Assad to take "concrete steps" to end the turmoil in his nation, the United Nations said Saturday, but a reported offensive against rebels in the country's rugged northwest highlighted the ferocity of the violence almost a year after the country's uprising began. Former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan met with Assad in Damascus, the Syrian capital, in a bid to head off what U.S. and other officials fear could become a full-fledged civil war in Syria, where protesters and insurgents demanding Assad's ouster have been battling security forces.

REYHANLI, Turkey - The Syrian opposition fighter arrived unexpectedly at Dr. Mazen Kewara's office at the Syrian American Medical Assn., desperately seeking help. Humanitarian aid was not reaching enough armed rebels and civilians in Syria's Idlib province, an exasperated Abdullatif "Abu Salah" Halaq told the doctor in this Turkish border town. The association could not wait for the needy to ask for assistance, Halaq said; it must try harder to locate those needing medical aid. "Your work here is good, but there are shortages," he said recently, looking at Kewara through bloodshot eyes.

IDLIB, Syria - Scattered around the house that Abu Nadim once shared with his wife and five children are hints of its former existence: a SpongeBob SquarePants pillow, a baby's crib, a woman's purse. Now the four-room home is a bomb-making workshop. Bags of ammonium nitrate fertilizer, containers of peroxide and acetone and powdered aluminum cover the floor, along with boxes of wires, PVC pipes, computer parts and cigarette ash, as if someone had wandered through without thought for an ashtray.

  In one of the single deadliest episodes reported during the 9-month-old uprising, Syrian security forces surrounded and killed more than 100 people in a hail of tank and machine-gun fire in a valley near the Turkish border, opposition activists said. The attack Tuesday near the village of Kfar Owaid came as government forces pressed an offensive against a mountainous region in Idlib province, in northwestern Syria, that has been gripped for weeks by protests and fierce clashes with military defectors.

BEIRUT - After weeks of fighting, Syrian rebels said Friday that they had seized a strategic air base in northwestern Idlib province, depriving the government of its ability to carry out helicopter airstrikes in the area. The Taftanaz air base has been used by the government to stage helicopter attacks on rebels in the province, adjacent to the Turkish border. The campaign to seize it had been spearheaded by hard-line Islamic fighting groups, such as Al Nusra Front, which is affiliated with Al Qaeda.

At least 24 Syrian protesters were killed Friday when security forces fired on demonstrators in cities across the country, according to witnesses and activists. The violence came just four days after President Bashar Assad's government allowed some dissidents to meet at a Damascus hotel. Other activists had labeled the highly publicized forum a government-backed public relations gimmick. The protests Friday drew some of the largest crowds since the antigovernment uprisings began in Syria in mid-March.

Syria'sarmed rebels have committed "serious human rights abuses," including kidnappings and torture, and reportedly executions, of security personnel and civilians, Human Rights Watch said Tuesday. The group painted a dark picture that is in stark contrast to the "freedom fighter" image that the rebels and their political allies outside Syria have sought to project to the world. In an open letter to the opposition, Human Rights Watch depicts a decentralized, disparate guerrilla structure in which armed groups seem to operate with complete autonomy, sometimes acting on sectarian motives to kidnap and kill security force members and civilians considered pro-government.

REYHANLI, Turkey - The Syrian opposition fighter arrived unexpectedly at Dr. Mazen Kewara's office at the Syrian American Medical Assn., desperately seeking help. Humanitarian aid was not reaching enough armed rebels and civilians in Syria's Idlib province, an exasperated Abdullatif "Abu Salah" Halaq told the doctor in this Turkish border town. The association could not wait for the needy to ask for assistance, Halaq said; it must try harder to locate those needing medical aid. "Your work here is good, but there are shortages," he said recently, looking at Kewara through bloodshot eyes.

GAZIANTEP, Turkey - On the banquet hall stage, a young girl with a Syrian opposition flag painted on her left cheek sang antigovernment songs, a sort of greatest hits of the Syrian revolution. Behind her, several men with their arms slung over one another's shoulders danced in rhythm. But few others at the election conference paid much attention to the impromptu display. Huddled in the lobby or in secret meetings, small groups of men representing the spectrum of Syria's opposition plotted and lobbied on behalf of competing interests.

BEIRUT - A car bomb at a border crossing on the Turkish-Syrian border Monday afternoon killed 10 people and left dozens injured, according to Turkey's semi-official Anatolian news agency. The blast occurred at the Cilvegozu Border Gate on the Turkish side of the border. It connects Turkey with Syria's Bab Al-Hawa crossing, which has been in the hands of Syrian rebels for months. The explosives were in a parked vehicle with Syrian license plates, the news agency reported. Opposition activists inside Syria were divided over who was behind the attack and whether or not the target was the Syrian opposition or Turkey.

As violence escalates in Syria, armed rebels appear to have attacked Christian churches and a Shiite place of worship, a rights group warned Wednesday after visiting the Syrian countryside. The attacks underscore fears that the conflict is becoming a sectarian battleground, said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director for Human Rights Watch. In the past, the group has also documented the destruction of an Idlib mosque at the hands of Syrian government forces. Witnesses said armed opposition fighters set a Shiite worship site ablaze in December as they took control of the village of Zarzour, according to Human Rights Watch.

BEIRUT -- Syrian rebels on Friday said that after a weeks-long battle in northwestern Idlib province they had seized a strategic air base, depriving the government of its ability to carry out helicopter airstrikes in the area. The Taftanaz air base has been used by the government to stage helicopter attacks on rebels in the province, adjacent to the Turkish border. The campaign to seize it had been spearheaded by hardline Islamic fighting groups, such as the Al Nusra front, which is affiliated with Al Qaeda.

BEIRUT - Ignoring mounting casualties and dwindling support, Syrian President Bashar Assad made clear to the world Sunday in his first public address in half a year that he has no intention of relinquishing power and that he, not anyone else, would dictate the end for Syria's 21-month-old civil war. Assad unveiled his own peace plan, with cosmetic similarities to a settlement proposal championed by internationally sponsored peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi,...

BEIRUT - Rebel fighters and government forces on Thursday battled for control of two strategic airports in northern Syria, the loss of which would be a severe blow to President Bashar Assad's efforts to maintain a hold in the region. Fighting erupted around the international airport in Aleppo, Syria's commercial capital, according to the opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which is based in London. The airport has been shut since Tuesday because it has been under attack by rebels seeking to cut off Assad's aerial supply route.

BEIRUT - Ignoring mounting casualties and dwindling support, Syrian President Bashar Assad made clear to the world Sunday in his first public address in half a year that he has no intention of relinquishing power and that he, not anyone else, would dictate the end for Syria's 21-month-old civil war. Assad unveiled his own peace plan, with cosmetic similarities to a settlement proposal championed by internationally sponsored peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi,...

BEIRUT - More than a year after the uprising began, only 50 people were still around to protest in a Syrian town of burned buildings and pockmarked storefronts. But for the residents of Anadan who came together to call for freedom and dignity on the morningSyria'scease-fire began last month, it was as though the revolution had begun again. "We were willing to come out like it was our first day," said Abu Ghaith, an activist in the town near Aleppo that rebels seized and lost again to government forces.

AMMAN, Jordan -- At least 18 people were killed Tuesday morning when Syrian government warplanes struck an olive press factory on the outskirts of Idlib city, opposition activists said. The building was hit by more than five rockets in an attack that also left 23 injured, said Ahmad Aasi, an opposition activist in Idlib. Those killed were farmers bringing olives from the local harvest and workers at the factory, he said. "They are targeting any gathering of people to kill the largest number possible," Aasi said.