Alarmed by the rise of al Qaeda in Syria, Saudi Arabia is trying to strengthen rival Islamists with ties to Riyadh and this week helped engineer a consolidation of rebel groups around Damascus under a Saudi-backed leader. That might bolster the opposition militarily as President Bashar...

More than 115,000 people have died in Syria’s ongoing civil war, a monitoring group said Tuesday. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that more than 41,000 civilians — including 6,000 children and 4,000 women — have been killed during the two-and-a-half-year conflict, ...

The  United Nations  is shifting its aid effort for  Syria  to prepare for long-term help to neighbouring countries to cope with the humanitarian crisis, the head of the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR said on Tuesday. More than 100,000 people have been killed in Syria's...

  If we confine our choices to leaders with broad appeal in the Arab and Islamist mainstream — excluding both al-Qaida and Kurdish leaders — we get the following five, listed in order. Hassan Abboud 1. Hassan Abboud,  the general...