Syrian Opposition

BEIRUT - Several Hezbollah fighters were reported killed inside Syria this past weekend in the latest indication that combatants from the Lebanese-based group have battled Syrian rebels seeking to overthrow President Bashar Assad. The Beirut-based English language Daily Star reported that three Hezbollah fighters and 12 Syrian rebels were killed in fierce clashes just inside Syria, close to the Lebanese-Syrian border. The confrontations occurred near the Syrian town of Qusayr, the Star reported, quoting a Lebanese security source.

BEIRUT — The speaker conveyed a message of harmony at a funeral for some of the first victims of the Syrian uprising. "We are all one," Moaz Khatib told mourners gathered on April 2, 2011, in Duma, a largely Sunni Muslim town outside Damascus, the Syrian capital. The victims had died at the hands of President Bashar Assad's security services, dominated by his Alawite sect. But the speaker eschewed sectarian rhetoric. "Alawites are often closer to me than other people," Khatib told the crowd in the largely Sunni Muslim town, in a video posted on YouTube.

BEIRUT - The deeply divided Syrian opposition took a step toward renewed unity Sunday, forming a new coalition designed to build stronger international support for its goal of ousting the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad. After more than a week of sometimes contentious discussions in the Qatari capital, Doha, Syrian dissidents said they had come together and formed an alliance with an unwieldy title: the Syrian National Coalition for Opposition and Revolutionary Forces.

MOSCOW -- Syrian President Bashar Assad has no intention of leaving his country and rebels for the time being should put aside the demand that he step aside as a precondition for negotiations, Russia's top diplomat said Saturday following a meeting in Moscow with the United Nations' peace envoy to the conflict. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said envoy Lakhdar Brahimi told him that Assad was determined to “stay in his position to the end and will protect Syrian people, Syrian sovereignty and so on and so forth and there is no chance to change his position.” Brahimi met with the Syrian leader this week before traveling on to Moscow.

The Syrian National Coalition, a new body that aims to unite the Syrian opposition, is slowly gaining recognition from groups in the country. The coalition was formed Sunday after a week of opposition meetings in Doha, capital of Qatar . Opposition groups have been posting statements of support to its official Facebook page . The administrator of the official page posted that the National Coalition had so far received almost 100 statements of...

BEIRUT -- Negotiations were underway Thursday between the United Nations and rebel forces in an effort to secure the release of 21 U.N. peacekeepers being held in southern Syria near the Golan Heights, a Syrian opposition group said. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said it had received word from the rebel battalion responsible for the abduction that insurgents were negotiating with delegates from the U.N. and from the Arab League. There was no official confirmation of talks from either  organization.

BEIRUT - Beleaguered Turkish officials called Monday for international assistance to aid escalating numbers of Syrian refugees arriving at Turkey's borders, and French President Francois Hollande said his country would recognize new Syrian leadership as soon as "it is formed. " Hollande called on those opposed to Syrian President Bashar Assad to declare a "provisional government. " Many experts view even a provisional government in exile as a distant goal since the Syrian opposition remains deeply divided along political, ethnic and sectarian lines and lacks a unified leadership.

BEIRUT - Syrian President Bashar Assad predicted a global catastrophe should the West invade his country, and representatives of Syria's notoriously divided opposition struggled Thursday to form a united government in exile against Assad's beleaguered rule. The International Committee of the Red Cross, meanwhile, said it could no longer cope with the fast-expanding humanitarian crisis in Syria, where a raging civil conflict has left millions in need of shelter, medical aid, food and other necessities.

  Washington has warned Syrian President Bashar Assad that his days are numbered, but it now faces the vexing problem of how to dislodge a defiant leader intent on snuffing out the 11-month uprising against him. One option increasingly under consideration is arming the rebels; another is to just look the other way should its Persian Gulf allies do so. The Obama administration said Tuesday that it would not support giving weapons to...

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is putting a positive spin on a new peace plan for Syria agreed to over the weekend in Geneva by the Syria Action Group, which comprises the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council as well as Turkey and Arab representatives. We hope her optimism is justified, but Russia continues to send maddeningly mixed signals about whether it recognizes that the time has come for Syrian President Bashar Assad to step down. Already a humanitarian tragedy, the civil war in Syria now threatens to spill into international conflict.