Turkey sees in the battle for Qusayr a strategy to create an Alawite mini-state within Syria, purged of Sunni Muslims, to which the ruling elite can withdraw for a last stand.
Turkey will build a 2.5-kilometer wall along the Cilvegözü post on the border with Syria, near where a twin bomb attack killed 51 and wounded more than 100 earlier this month.
As Obama left Israel for Jordan, two Palestinian youths were critically wounded when Israeli forces fired rubber-coated steel bullets on protesters at Anata north of Jerusalem.
Kurdish militias in Syria—some linked to the PKK—are battling jihadist rebels, but it is uncertain if they necessarily back the Damascus regime.
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.
Kurdish activists charge that “dark forces” bent on sabotaging Turkey’s peace talks with the PKK were behind the armed attack that left three leaders dead in Paris.
With pitched fighting in Damascus, the Internet is down across Syria. Russia meanwhile protests NATO plans to place missiles along Syria's border in Turkey.
Egyptian President Mohammed Mursi announced that emergency talks are progressing toward a ceasefire in the recent escalation of violence in Gaza and southern Israel.
The Turkish military carried out a ground operation against PKK guerillas in northern Iraq, followed by airstrikes in the Kandil Mountains along the border.
Thousands held demonstrations in Ankara, Istanbul and Diyarbakir to show solidarity with Kurdish political prisoners who have been on hunger strike in Turkey.
A Turkish court opened a trial in absentia for Israeli military commanders accused of killing nine Turkish citizens aboard a ship attempting to pass through the Gaza blockade in 2010.
Turkey’s parliament in an emergency session authorized military action against Syria following deadly cross-border fire—while insisting it was not a war mandate.
