The United States has increased direct funding to rebel groups fighting in Damascus and southern Syria, ramping up pressure on president Bashar Al Assad after negotiations in Geneva ended in deadlock. Last week, as the Syrian regime   delegation in...

  Over the last two weeks, Obama administration officials have signaled - sometimes intentionally, sometimes not - that a worst-case scenario is emerging in Syria. Peace talks are at a virtual standstill. An emboldened President Bashar al-Assad has missed two...

Libyan Prime Minister Ali Zeidan appealed for Libyans to avoid violence in settling a standoff over their interim parliament, whose mandate was due to run out on Friday with the country deeply divided over its future. Two-and-a-half years since the fall of Muammar Gaddafi, Libya's...

Syria evacuated three busloads of civilians from a besieged area of Homs on Friday, the first stage of a planned three-day humanitarian ceasefire in the city which has suffered some of the worst devastation of Syria's three-year conflict. The buses carrying dozens of weary-looking...