Syria Dissidents

The mountain range that forms a natural boundary between Syria and Lebanon has long served also as a wartime conduit for people who cannot travel legally - the gunrunners, the rebels, the dissidents and the ordinary citizens who just want to escape.

Syrian opposition representatives met in Cairo today in a bid to forge a new, broader alliance against President Bashar Al-Assad's regime and agree on a roadmap for ending the conflict.

President Barack Obama imposed US sanctions on Monday on those who help Syria and Iran track dissidents through cell phones and computers, serving notice on technology providers that they could be held responsible for those governments' human rights abuses. Obama's announcement underscored how democracy activists have used social media tools in pr...

Syrian forces heavily shelled the restive city of Homs on Monday, and troops pushed back dissident troops from some suburbs on the outskirts of Damascus in an offensive trying to regain control of the capital's eastern doorstep, activists said.

In dozens of tanks and armored vehicles, Syrian troops have stormed rebellious areas near the capital, shelling neighborhoods that have fallen under the control of army dissidents and clashing with fighters. At least 62 people were killed in violence nationwide, activists and residents said.

The Arab League has halted its observer mission in Syria because of escalating violence that has killed nearly 100 people over the past three days, as pro-regime forces battled dissident soldiers in a belt of suburbs on the eastern edge of Damascus in the most intense fighting yet so close to the capital.

The mountain range that forms a natural boundary between Syria and Lebanon has long served also as a wartime conduit for people who cannot travel legally - the gunrunners, the rebels, the dissidents and the ordinary citizens who just want to escape.

Syrian opposition representatives met in Cairo today in a bid to forge a new, broader alliance against President Bashar Al-Assad's regime and agree on a roadmap for ending the conflict.

President Barack Obama imposed US sanctions on Monday on those who help Syria and Iran track dissidents through cell phones and computers, serving notice on technology providers that they could be held responsible for those governments' human rights abuses. Obama's announcement underscored how democracy activists have used social media tools in pr...

Syrian forces heavily shelled the restive city of Homs on Monday, and troops pushed back dissident troops from some suburbs on the outskirts of Damascus in an offensive trying to regain control of the capital's eastern doorstep, activists said.

In dozens of tanks and armored vehicles, Syrian troops have stormed rebellious areas near the capital, shelling neighborhoods that have fallen under the control of army dissidents and clashing with fighters. At least 62 people were killed in violence nationwide, activists and residents said.

The Arab League has halted its observer mission in Syria because of escalating violence that has killed nearly 100 people over the past three days, as pro-regime forces battled dissident soldiers in a belt of suburbs on the eastern edge of Damascus in the most intense fighting yet so close to the capital.