Middle Orient

US Secretary of State John Kerry will seek to rally EU support for military strikes against Syria after a G20 summit failed to resolve bitter divisions between Washington and Moscow. Kerry will press the case for punitive action against Syria after what the United States says was a chemical weapons …

France is urging the European Union to unanimously condemn a chemical weapons attack near Damascus and agree it was carried out by the Syrian regime, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius announced this morning.

Iran will support Syria “until the end” in the face of possible US-led military strikes, the chief of Iran’s elite Quds Force unit was quoted Thursday by the media as saying. Iran is Syria’s main regional ally and some analysts believe a wider goal of US President Barack Obama’s determination to launch a

Activists say the Syrian government has dispatched reinforcements to a predominantly Christian village north of Damascus where rebels have clashed with regime troops this week. The director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says the government forces sent to Maaloula include

NATO is not going to broaden its role in the Syrian conflict other than providing a platform for debate amongst its members and working to protect Turkey, a NATO spokesman said at a press conference on Friday.

The United States Senate has drafted a bipartisan use-of-force resolution that imposes a 90-day deadline for military intervention in Syria and bars the use of US troops on the ground there. Congress this week is debating President Barack Obama’s push for a military response to what he says was Syrian …

A new group of ships from Russia’s Black Sea Fleet will join the country’s Mediterranean task force within days. The task force currently includes vessels from the Pacific, Northern, Baltic and Black Sea fleets: the destroyer Admiral Panteleyev, the large amphibious landing ships Admiral Nevelsky and Alexander Shabalin, the frigate …

Russia said that a military strike on Syria could have catastrophic effects if a missile hit a small reactor near Damascus that contains radioactive uranium. The Foreign Ministry called Wednesday on the U.N. nuclear agency to urgently assess the risk as the United States considers military action to punish Syria’s government for an alleged gas attack.

The U.S. Congress should reject the use of force in Syria in order to protect regional peace, the Iranian ambassador to Lebanon said Thursday. Congress must follow U.S. President Barack Obama’s “rational” policy, Ghazanfar Roknabadi said

Syrian rebels who seized an entry to a Christian town north of Damascus this week have now withdrawn to protect religious and archaeological sites there, an opposition statement said. “Free Syrian Army (FSA) units on Wednesday destroyed posts at Maalula and