Middle East

CAIRO (AP) — The Arab League says it will ask the U.N. Security Council to "review" its policy on Syria if the regime there fails to fully and immediately honor its commitment to a cease-fire.  A statement by Arab foreign ministers meeting at the League's Cairo headquarters on Thursday said the Damascus regime was negotiating while simultaneously "killing its own people."

DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — A suicide bomber blew himself up across the street from a mosque in the Syrian capital Friday, killing at least five people and wounding 20, state TV said. Thousands of Syrians protested elsewhere to denounce persistent violence by President Bashar Assad's regime.

Up to 70 people have been killed in an attack on a house in Hama, according to Syrian activists.  They said several houses in the Masha at-Tayyar district in southern Hama were destroyed by a big explosion.  State media said 16 people died in the blast in a house used as a bomb factory by "armed terrorist groups."

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian forces shot dead four civilians on a bus on Wednesday and fighting raged near Damascus, dissidents said, as international pressure mounted on President Bashar al-Assad to honor U.N.-backed ceasefire pledges to order his troops back to barracks.

BEIRUT — Samir Geagea was bending down to pick a flower, he said, when he heard the sound of gunshots. From a hilltop a kilometer away, a sniper drew a bead on the political leader, a former warlord, sending a bullet past his head and another by his torso.

UNITED NATIONS, April 24 (Reuters) - The U.N. peacekeeping chief told the Security Council on Tuesday it will take a month to deploy 100 unarmed military observers to Syria, envoys said, though international mediator Kofi Annan argued that a few monitors on the ground can make a difference. 

(Reuters) - The European Union adopted new sanctions against Syria on Monday because of the continued bloodshed in the country despite a 10-day ceasefire, the EU's council of foreign ministers announced.  The new measures announced by the ministers, representing EU governments, would restrict exports to Syria of two types of merchandise: luxury products and certain goods that could be used for repression.

BEIRUT (AP) — Syrian troops armed with heavy machine guns killed dozens in the central city of Hama Monday, activists said, just a day after chanting protesters welcomed a visit by a U.N. team sent to observe a shaky cease-fire.  The day's violence, the city's worst in months, added a dangerous new aspect to the U.N. team's work: that the Syrian regime might exact deadly revenge against opponents who feel empowered by the observers' presence to spill into the streets.  Observance of the truce, which was supposed to begin April 12, has been spotty at best.

United Nations ceasefire monitors were touring towns near the Syrian capital on Monday, an official said, as the European Union slapped new sanctions on the regime of Bashar al-Assad.  Neeraj Singh, spokesman for an eight-member advance team of UN observers deployed in

BEIRUT — As Syria’s revolution drags into its second year amid few signs that a U.N.-mandated cease-fire plan will end the violence, evidence is mounting that Islamist extremists are seeking to commandeer what began as a non-ideological uprising aimed at securing greater political freedom.  Activists and rebel soldiers based inside Syria say a small but growing number of Islamist radicals affiliated with global jihadi movements have been arriving in opposition strongholds in recent weeks and attempting to rally support among disaffected residents.