Middle East, Syria | featured news

The U.N. refugee agency says the number of Syrian refugees seeking its help now tops a quarter-million. Agency spokesman Adrian Edwards says 253,106 people have registered or are awaiting registration as Syrian refugees.

A militant who fought alongside Osama Bin Laden in Afghanistan and is now the leader of a group affiliated with Al-Qaeda in South Yemen has struck a deal with the United States and Saudi Arabia to send 5,000 Al-Qaeda fighters into Syria according to reports out of the Middle East.

Hezbollah's support for the government of Bashar Assad holds firm despite Sryia's bloody 18-month crackdown on a rebellion sparked by Arab Spring movements sweeping the region.

More foreign fighters claiming allegiance to al-Qaida have reportedly joined rebels in war-torn Aleppo, deepening the regional implications of the conflict in Syria. According to Zeina Khodr, a journalist with news channel Al Jazeera, "Arab fighters from Saudi Arabia and Egypt who didn't want to be filmed" were operating in the city. Some reportedly claimed allegiance to al-Qaida.

The U.S. Navy is cutting short home leave for the crew of one of its aircraft carriers and sending them back to the Middle East next week to counter any threat from Iran, according to the official Navy News Service.

Syrian soldiers backed by tanks entered the Damascus suburb of Mouadamiya on Tuesday, killing at least 20 young men and burning shops and houses before gradually withdrawing from the town, residents and opposition activists said.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned the West on Tuesday against any unilateral action on Syria after President Barack Obama said U.S. forces could act if the Syrian leader deployed chemical weapons against rebels trying to topple him.

President Obama on Monday threatened military action against Syria if there was evidence that the government of President Bashar al-Assad was moving its stocks of chemical or biological weapons. It was Mr. Obama’s most direct warning of American intervention in Syria, where Mr. Assad’s military is fighting an 18-month-old rebellion.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad performed Eid prayers in a Damascus mosque on Sunday, state television showed, in his first appearance in public since a July bombing in the Syrian capital that killed four top security officials.

The United Nations on Friday confirmed that veteran Algerian diplomat Lakhdar Brahimi would become the new international mediator on Syria, as the 17-month-old conflict slid deeper into civil war and refugees fled to Turkey in increasing numbers.