Rebels

Here in Moammar Kadafi's capital, embassies continue to close down. Gas lines get longer. Fear and uncertainty grow. Spring has arrived, but there are no short-sleeve shirts for sale at the market because supply lines to Tripoli are cut. Across the country in eastern Libya, the rebel government is gaining international recognition. New groups of diplomats arrive daily in Benghazi, the rebels' de facto capital. The rebels have begun taking steps to provide logistical support to allies in other parts of the country.

James Franco is an actor-turned-artist-turned-author-turned-actor-playing-an-artist-named-Franco in the soap opera "General Hospital" — who has made a movie, "Francophrenia," that documents the experience. He's about as "meta" as it gets. Now Franco has brought his knack for melding pop culture and fine art in unorthodox ways to a new exhibition for Los Angeles' Museum of Contemporary Art. "Rebel," which opens Tuesday, is a high-concept group show that is a loose, interpretive ode to the 1955 James Dean film "Rebel Without a Cause.

It took just a few months of combat for Tuareg rebels in Mali, battle-hardened by their time fighting for Libya's late leader Moammar Kadafi, to achieve a century-old dream: conquering a huge swath of northern Mali that they see as their homeland. Even if the rebels never win international recognition, their battlefield successes have in effect partitioned the West African nation. Neither the country's new military junta nor leaders of neighboring nations appear capable of overturning the recent gains by the rebels, analysts say. After a military coup in March that toppled the government a month before elections, the main Tuareg rebels took several key cities, including Kidal, Gao and Timbuktu, a stunning advance that saw the collapse of Mali's army in the north.

Syria yearns for freedom from the brutality of the Assad regime. For four decades, thousands upon thousands paid the price for their opposition to Bashar Assad and his father, Hafez Assad. We have been intimidated, arrested, tortured and killed. Since the uprising began in 2011, opposition forces put the death toll at more than 10,000, with many more imprisoned. And all because we want a free, fair Syria. I am 81; I have dedicated my life to advancing democracy, constitutional principles and an independent judiciary in my country.

Nine Colombian army soldiers were killed in a bloody confrontation with leftist guerrillas early Tuesday along a well-known transit corridor in southwestern Colombia frequented by drug traffickers and insurgents. Analysts believe the attack may be part of a campaign by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, to step up its activities before next year's presidential election. President Alvaro Uribe, whose policies have set the FARC back on its heels since he took office in 2002, is expected to seek a third term.

Hours after tribal leaders reached a truce in northern Yemen, clashes erupted Sunday in fighting between government-backed clans and Houthi rebels that has killed more than 60 people in recent days, according to tribal sources and media reports. The latest round of bloodshed broke out last week in the tribally dominated provinces of Amran and Saada after the government accused the Houthi tribal alliance of assassinating a pro-government sheik and his son. Four people were killed in Sunday's clashes, which came after President Ali Abdullah Saleh said he did not want renewed fighting between government troops and Houthi rebels.

Saying President Obama and the United Nations are not doing enough to stop the bloodshed in Syria, leading Senate hawks have proposed supplying Syrian rebels with weapons and support in the first congressional move toward ending the Assad regime. The senators made it clear Wednesday they were not calling for the authorization of U.S. military intervention as they pressed to send munitions and aid to the Syrian rebels as they battle President Bashar Aassad. “How can you sit on the sidelines in Syria and not take a stand?

I met with seven unlikely California rebels this week on the campus of Cal State Fullerton. All are Orange County residents. They commute from the likes of Huntington Beach and Yorba Linda. Two are business majors. Cal State Fullerton is not Berkeley. It's not where you go to be an agitator. But these are tough times. And the rebels of Fullerton say budget cuts and fee hikes forced their hand. "I paid my tuition in full, and then they tacked on another $300 after I paid," said Sean Washburn, 23, of Orange, who joined a sit-in outside the university president's office last week.

CIA officers are on the ground in Libya, coordinating with rebels and sharing intelligence, U.S. officials say, but the Obama administration has not yet decided whether to take the further step of providing weapons to those trying to oust Moammar Kadafi. The issue of whether to provide the ragtag rebel forces with arms has been controversial in Washington. On Wednesday, two key lawmakers — a Republican and a Democrat — came out against the idea. "We don't have to look very far back in history to find examples of the unintended consequences of passing out advanced weapons to a group of fighters we didn't know as well as we should have," said Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.)

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.

AREHA, Syria - Five times a day, for 15 years, the muezzin made the call to prayer from the mosque's minaret, which rose high above the roofs of the modest homes surrounding it. When soldiers, their tanks positioned throughout the city, asked him whether rebel fighters used the minaret, he told them, "I swear no one goes up there except for me. " But a few Sundays ago, when Areha was under near-constant bombardment, a shell slammed into...

It took just a few months of combat for Tuareg rebels in Mali, battle-hardened by their time fighting for Libya's late leader Moammar Kadafi, to achieve a century-old dream: conquering a huge swath of northern Mali that they see as their homeland. Even if the rebels never win international recognition, their battlefield successes have in effect partitioned the West African nation. Neither the country's new military junta nor leaders of neighboring nations appear capable of overturning the recent gains by the rebels, analysts say. After a military coup in March that toppled the government a month before elections, the main Tuareg rebels took several key cities, including Kidal, Gao and Timbuktu, a stunning advance that saw the collapse of Mali's army in the north.

BOGOTA, Colombia — Ending a long-running and inhuman nightmare for the victims and their families, Colombia's largest rebel group on Monday released its final 10 military hostages, some of whom had been in captivity in makeshift jungle prisons for more than 14 years. A military helicopter on loan from the Brazilian government and staffed with international Red Cross mediators to complete a prearranged release plucked the four soldiers and six police hostages from the hands of rebels at an unspecified location on the border of Meta and Guaviare provinces in eastern Colombia.

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.

Saying President Obama and the United Nations are not doing enough to stop the bloodshed in Syria, leading Senate hawks have proposed supplying Syrian rebels with weapons and support in the first congressional move toward ending the Assad regime. The senators made it clear Wednesday they were not calling for the authorization of U.S. military intervention as they pressed to send munitions and aid to the Syrian rebels as they battle President Bashar Aassad. “How can you sit on the sidelines in Syria and not take a stand?

In the Land of Blood and Honey Sony Blu-ray, $40.99 Writer-director-producer Angelina Jolie's earnest Bosnian war film received more attention than it otherwise might've because of the presence of her name above its title, but it was subject to undue skepticism as well. This is a well-crafted drama, following the tricky relationship between a Serbian soldier played by Goran Kostic and a Muslim prisoner of war played by Zana Marjanovic. Given the grimness of the subject matter, Jolie drains the film of nearly all lightness and thrills, but as with a lot of actors turned directors, she helps her cast find the emotional truth in every scene and builds a compelling story.

Syrian authorities and antigovernment activists accused each other Tuesday of reprisal killings in the central city of Homs, where government forces recently overran rebel-held areas and continue to deny access to outside humanitarian aid and human rights observers. The Syrian army has said it is "cleansing" the Homs neighborhood of Baba Amr of mines and booby traps left behind by "terrorists" when rebel fighters with the Free Syrian Army withdrew from the area last week. But activists and human rights groups said government troops in Baba Amr were carrying out revenge killings, which they say claimed an entire family, among others.

Despite lingering questions about the rebels in Libya, the coalition of countries battling Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi is increasingly treating them as the country's legitimate rulers. Coalition officials have invited senior members of a rebel leadership group to London next week to meet world leaders at a two-day conference to bolster international support for the Libyan operation, officials said Friday. The invitation was issued even though the coalition countries are in a delicate position regarding the rebels.

A military coup in Mali, a country seen as a model of democracy for 20 years, drew quick condemnation from Western and African leaders Thursday, with calls for an immediate return to civilian rule. The trigger for the coup, which resulted in soldiers looting the presidential palace in the capital, Bamako, appeared to be anger among members of the military who accuse the government of failing to arm its forces adequately enough to put down a January uprising by Tuareg rebels in the north.

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.