As the Friends of Syria summit opened in Istanbul, US Secretary of State John Kerry announced $100 million in new “non-lethal” aid to the Syrian opposition.
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, “emir” of al-Qaeda in Iraq, announced a merger with Syria’s Nusra Front to form a new organization, the “Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham.”
Opposition activists from Syrian President Bashar Assad's Alawite sect publicly broke ranks with the regime at a meeting in Cairo, and urged their fellow Alawites in the army to rebel.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon announced that the UN will initiate a probe into the possible use of chemical weapons in Syria following an attack on a village near Aleppo.
In a new massacre near Homs—one of several in Syria over the past weeks—the regime blames the Nusra Front rebels, while the opposition blames the pro-regime Shabiha militia.
The Martyrs of Yarmouk militant group seized UN peacekeepers on Syria's line of control with the Golan Heights, as international Shi'ite militants converge in Damascus.
Kurdish militias in Syria—some linked to the PKK—are battling jihadist rebels, but it is uncertain if they necessarily back the Damascus regime.
A Lebanese judge issued an arrest warrant for a top Syrian intelligence official and his aide for alleged involvement in a bombing plot in Lebanon.
The suicide blast at the US embassy in Ankara was allegedly carried out by the outlawed Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party/Front (DHKP-C), an armed left faction.
Israeli warplanes carried out an air-strike on Syrian territory, allegedly targeting an arms convoy bound for Hezbollah. Damascus claims a research facility was the real target.
More than 50 countries asked the UN Security Council to refer Syria to the International Criminal Court, saying atrocities against the population are now “almost the norm.”
A study by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights finds that more than 60,000 people have been killed in the conflict in Syria since March 2011.
