Middle East, Bashar Assad | featured news

An Arab League committee has given Syria 24 hours to agree to allow an observer mission into the country or it could face sanctions. Thursday’s threat comes as international pressure mounts on President Bashar Assad to stop the brutal crackdown on an uprising against his regime. The U.N. says 3,500 people have been killed in the crackdown since March.

Jordan's King Abdullah said Tuesday that Syrian President Bashar Assad should step down, making him the first Arab ruler to issue such a call over the regime's deadly crackdown on an 8-month-old uprising.

Western powers risk causing a major conflict in the Middle East if they intervene in Syria, President Bashar al-Assad says in an interview with a British newspaper.

More than 30 civilians and as many as a dozen soldiers were killed Monday in an upsurge of violence in Syria, most of them in the central city of Homs that is rapidly emerging as the epicenter of armed resistance to the government led by President Bashar al-Assad.

The United States called for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to "step down now" following the assassination of a prominent Kurdish opposition figure amid continuing violence in the nation.

The Obama administration is trying to avoid a repeat of what happened in Iraq, where the United States was not fully prepared for the aftermath of a leader’s fall.

Syrian troops killed at least 17 people Friday in raids on anti-government protesters, activists said, but failed to stop thousands from pouring into streets nationwide and taking their uprising against President Bashar Assad’s autocratic rule into a seventh month.

Reuters reports that Syrian President Bashar Assad and Arab League Chief Nabil Elaraby have agreed to measures that could end months of violence. DP news reports that Syria said Assad and Elaraby agreed on a number of “practical steps” to speed up the reform process.

Security forces in the Syrian capital of Damascus intensify checkpoints and patrols to keep an overnight surge of protests from spreading into the heart of the city, a stronghold for President Bashar Assad.

The downfall of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi is likely to pave the way for increased Western attention to Syria and embolden protests against President Bashar al-Assad.