Syria News

Al-Qaida's leader has called for the ouster of Syria's "pernicious, cancerous regime," raising fears that Islamic extremists will try to exploit an uprising against President Bashar Assad that began with peaceful calls for democratic change but is morphing into a bloody, armed insurgency.

When the Syrian refugees first came into his Lebanese border town, Abdullah Taseer found them rooms in people's homes.

Sen. John McCain says the United States should find ways to help the Syrian people under siege from President Bashar Assad, without putting American "boots on the ground." McCain tells "CBS This Morning" there are several options available, ranging from medical care and technical assistance to safe havens for refugees of the violence.

Every day, rockets and mortars fired by regime forces rattle the streets of Homs.

Lebanese banks which worked for years to build up business in neighboring Syria have been quietly implementing U.S. and European Union sanctions against Damascus to avoid jeopardizing their international operations, bankers and economists say.

Russia may be seeking a "controlled demolition" of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's rule to save its sole major foothold in the Arab world against Western rivals when its foreign minister and spy chief hold rare talks in Damascus this week.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton called Sunday for "friends of democratic Syria" to unite and rally against President Bashar Assad's regime, previewing the possible formation of a formal group of likeminded nations to coordinate assistance to the Syrian opposition.

Syrian forces unleashed a barrage of mortars and artillery on the battered city of Homs on Saturday, killing more than 200 people in what appears to be the bloodiest episode in the nearly 11-month-old uprising, activists said.

Syrian demonstrators ransacked their country's embassy in Cairo and broke into the missions in London and Kuwait, part of protests around the world against the worst bloodshed of the 11 month uprising against President Bashar al-Assad. The Cairo crowd smashed furniture and equipment and set fire to parts of the embassy building overnight.

Several U.N. Security Council members said they were close to a deal on Thursday on the wording of a draft resolution backing an Arab League plan for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to step aside, but it was unclear if Russia would agree to it.

The United States, European governments and Arab states have begun discussing the possibility of exile for Bashar al-Assad despite skepticism the defiant Syrian president is ready to consider such an offer, Western officials said on Wednesday.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Tuesday accused the Syrian regime of a "divide-and-conquer strategy" aimed at setting the country's religious and ethnic groups against each other.

Christians are under threat in Syria, but the Obama administration appears unaware of, or unwilling to acknowledge, the source of the danger facing the minority.

Syrian insurgents say they are holding seven Iranians hostage and will not release them until the government frees a rebel army officer and stops military operations in Homs, a center of revolt in Syria's 10-month-old uprising.

Arab states are likely to extend the mandate of their monitors in Syria despite concerns over their inability to bring about an end to bloodshed during their first month there, an Arab diplomatic source said on Friday.

Syria's religious and ethnic minorities need to work together with liberal Sunni Muslims to counter the influence of Islamists in the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad, a prominent Sunni Muslim opposition figure said.