Syria news stories on Newser

Were Rebels Able to Poison Top Syrian Officials?

Mark Russell — Fri, 25 May 2012 09:24:37 CDT

Syria is denying it, but Israeli officials say there's truth to the claim that Syrian rebels attempted to kill top government officials with poison last Saturday. According to Haaretz , the rebels were able to turn the bodyguard to Syria's national security chairman, and that bodyguard was able to poison a...

Syrian Violence Spills Into Lebanon

Kevin Spak — Mon, 21 May 2012 12:33:12 CDT

Don't look now, but the Syrian conflict might not be confined to Syria anymore. Gun battles broke out in Beirut today between factions supporting and opposed to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, the New York Times reports, in Lebanon's most intense outbreak of violence since the Syrian uprising began. The fighting...

Obama Tells Karzai: 'We're on the Right Track'

Neal Colgrass — Sun, 20 May 2012 14:35:00 CDT

President Obama met with Afghan President Hamid Karzai today at the NATO summit and urged world leaders to agree on post-2014 Afghanistan, MSNBC reports. "What this NATO summit reflects is that the world is behind strategy we've laid out," Obama said of the plan to pull out coalition troops in...

UN Suspects North Korea Shipped Weapons to Syria

Matt Cantor — Fri, 18 May 2012 08:35:05 CDT

UN officials fear North Korea may be involved in arms deals with Syria and Burma. Pyongyang "continues actively to defy" UN sanctions, says an unpublished panel report viewed by Reuters that cites "illicit sales of arms and related materiel and luxury goods." According to the report, in 2010 France discovered...

US Helping Arm Syria Rebels... But Not Actually Arming Them

Rob Quinn — Wed, 16 May 2012 03:00:00 CDT

Syrian rebels have been receiving large shipments of arms in recent weeks with the help of the US, but the Obama administration is going out of its way to stress that it's not forking over weapons or money. Instead, the Washington Post reports, Washington is coordinating efforts to arm the...

Deadly Blasts Rock Damascus, Syrian Intel HQ

Kevin Spak — Thu, 10 May 2012 07:38:00 CDT

At least 50 people were killed and some 370 wounded in two huge, nearly simultaneous bomb blasts in Damascus today, targeting the headquarters of the feared "Palestinian Branch" intelligence services, Syrian officials said. The bombs hit the busy al-Qazaz district, and according to an AP reporter on the scene, one...

1.5M Syrians Need Food, Shelter: Red Cross

Evann Gastaldo — Tue, 08 May 2012 12:11:05 CDT

As the crisis in Syria shows no signs of abating, the Red Cross warns that 1.5 million people lack the very essentials: food, water, shelter, power, and sanitation. Tens of thousands in the country have either moved in with other people or are living in public buildings, and about...

Syria Heads to the Polls

Evann Gastaldo — Mon, 07 May 2012 08:20:48 CDT

Even as violence continues in Syria despite last month’s ceasefire, voters today headed for the polls for a parliamentary election that the government insists is a sign of political reform. But the opposition calls it a sham: "All of this is a theater show,” one man tells Reuters . “The candidates...

Syria Uses Skype Malware to Spy on Activists: Tech Firm

Dustin Lushing — Fri, 04 May 2012 16:54:00 CDT

The Syrian government is hacking into the computers of activists and secretly surveilling them by spreading malicious software through Skype, reports TechWeek Europe . Recently, an activist thought she was Skype-chatting with an ally, but she suddenly realized her friend was in jail and could not possibly be online. She received...