Assad's partisans tout a supposed massacre by jihadists near Damascus, while igonoring the much larger and thoroughly verified one being carried out by the regime in Aleppo.
Ex-CIA director Michael Hayden says Bashar Assad is the best option for stability in Syria—while the White House now considers arming jihadist rebels.
The US ironically announces a halt in aid to the Syrian rebels on the same day that the UN concludes there have been multiple chemical attacks in the country this year.
A suicide attack on the defense ministry thrust Yemen briefly into the news—as an invisible sectarian war rages across much of the countryside.
Lebanon's government has ordered the coastal city of Tripoli placed under army control amid growing sectarian clashes pitting Sunni residents against Alawites.
France is escalating its military mission in the Central African Republic, airlifting troops and equipment to the capital Bangui ahead of an anticipated UN-backed intervention.
Celebrations of Muharram, the Shi’ite holy month highlighted by the Ashura festival, saw sectarian violence that left several dead across Pakistan.
Elements of Washington wonkdom are calling for the break-up of Syria into ethno-sectarian mini-states, and see the separatist contagion spreading to the rest of the Middle East.
As the Free Syrian Army now battles jihadist rebels as well as the regime, the two biggest jihadist factions are fighting each other for control over oilfields in Syria’s north.
Syria does not recognize the International Criminal Court, so an ICC case against Bashar Assad can only be launched by the Security Council—where Russia holds a veto.
Syria’s Christians are becoming propaganda fodder in an international war of perceptions, with atrocities carried out by the jihadist Nusra Front being attributed to the FSA.
Armenians, Circassians, Mandaeans and other small ethnicities in Syria are being uprooted by jihadist terror, and increasingly see the Assad regime as the lesser evil.
