Bashar Assad

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FILE - This January 19, 2014, file photo provided by Aleppo Media Center (AMC), an anti-Bashar Assad activist group, which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, shows Syrian citizens inspecting an unexploded barrel bomb filled with explosives, which was dropped from a Syrian forces helicopter on a street in Aleppo, Syria. The use of barrel bombs has spread this year from Syria to Iraq, raising concerns that desperate governments in a number of unstable nations from Europe to Africa to the Middle East will turn to weapons that the international community has condemned as a violation of human rights laws. (AP Photo/Aleppo Media Center, AMC, File)

Increased use of barrel bombs in Mideast, Africa

By LARA JAKES - Associated Press

Illustration on the withdrawal of American force around the world by Paul Tong/Tribune Content Agency

LAMBRO: Obama and a U.S. world leadership deficit

By Donald Lambro

In this Wednesday, May 7, 2014 photo provided by the anti-government activist group Coordination Committee of Khalidiya Neighborhood in Homs, which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, Free Syrian Army fighters board a bus leaving Homs, Syria. President Barack Obama may soon sign off on a project to train and equip moderate Syrian rebels, in an open move that would significantly boost U.S. support to forces who have been asking for three years for military help in their quest to oust President Bashar Assad, administration officials said Tuesday.The step, which could be announced as early as Wednesday, would send a limited number of American troops to Jordan to be part of a regional training mission that would instruct carefully vetted members of the Free Syrian Army on tactics, including counterterrorism operations, the officials said. They said Obama has not yet given final approval for the initiative, and that there is still internal discussion about its merits and potential risks. (AP Photo/The Coordination Committee of Khalidiya Neighborhood in Homs)

US eyes training moderate Syrian rebels

By MATTHEW LEE and LOLITA C. BALDOR - Associated Press

Hezbollah commander wanted by FBI killed in Syria

By BASSEM MROUE - Associated Press

Va. state Sen. pens letter to Syrian president

Associated Press

A Syrian man who lives in Lebanon stands next of a portrait of Syrian President Bashar Assad and shout slogans, as he walks towards to the Syrian embassy to ballot their vote for the presidential elections, in Baabda, east of Beirut, Lebanon, Wednesday May 28, 2014. Thousands are flocking to the Syrian embassy in Lebanon as expat voting starts ahead of Syria's June 3 presidential election. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

Lebanese troops beat Syrian voters outside embassy

By Bassem Mroue - Associated Press

In this Wednesday, May 7, 2014 photo provided by the anti-government activist group Coordination Committee of Khalidiya Neighborhood in Homs, which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, Free Syrian Army fighters board a bus leaving Homs, Syria. President Barack Obama may soon sign off on a project to train and equip moderate Syrian rebels, in an open move that would significantly boost U.S. support to forces who have been asking for three years for military help in their quest to oust President Bashar Assad, administration officials said Tuesday.The step, which could be announced as early as Wednesday, would send a limited number of American troops to Jordan to be part of a regional training mission that would instruct carefully vetted members of the Free Syrian Army on tactics, including counterterrorism operations, the officials said. They said Obama has not yet given final approval for the initiative, and that there is still internal discussion about its merits and potential risks. (AP Photo/The Coordination Committee of Khalidiya Neighborhood in Homs)

US nears decision on training Syrian rebels

By MATTHEW LEE and LOLITA C. BALDOR - Associated Press

In this photo released by the Syrian official news agency SANA, a general view shows Aleppo prison in Aleppo, Syria, Thursday, May 22, 2014. Syrian troops backed by airstrikes broke a yearlong rebel siege of a prison in the northern city of Aleppo Thursday, allowing President Bashar Assad's forces to close in on a nearby command center of a coalition of Islamist rebel groups, opposition activists said. (AP Photo/SANA)

Mortar attack on Assad gathering in Syria kills 21

By Barbara Surk - Associated Press

FILE - In this Tuesday, March 11, 2014 file photo, Dr. Darwish Khan examines two year-old Syrian refugee Mohammed al-Omar at a medical clinic in the town of Kab Elias in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley. International watchdog, London-based Amnesty International, says Syrian refugees in Lebanon are going without treatment for chronic illnesses like diabetes and cancer because of a shortfall in funding to provide them with medical care in a report released Wednesday, May 21, 2014. Amnesty said the over 1 million Syrian refugees have overwhelmed resources in neighboring Lebanon. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein, File)

Watchdog: Syrians lack medical care in Lebanon

By BARBARA SURK - Associated Press

In this Feb. 13, 2014 image made from amateur video posted by Shaam News Network (SNN), an anti-Bashar Assad activist group, which has been verified and is consistent with other AP reporting, revolutionary goalkeeper Abdelbasit Sarout chants slogans during a demonstration in Homs, Syria. He began as a local hero on the soccer field, playing for the most popular team of his home city Homs and rising toward national stardom across Syria. But when the uprising against President Bashar Assad began, Sarout left all of it to lead peaceful protests, rallying thousands to demand Assad leave power. More than three years later, the former goalkeeper - now an armed fighter - has become a charismatic icon of the Syria’s rebellion. (AP Photo/Shaam News Network via AP video)

Syrian soccer goalie-turned-rebel becomes icon

By BARBARA SURK - Associated Press

This photo provided by the anti-government activist group Aleppo Media Center (AMC), which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, shows buildings which were destroyed from a Syrian government airstrike in Aleppo, Syria, Saturday, May. 17, 2014. The United Nations chief has condemned a cut in water supplies in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo that he said has deprived at least 2.5 million people of access to potable water. (AP Photo/Aleppo Media Center AMC)

Death toll in Syria’s war tops 160,000, activists say

By Barbara Surk - Associated Press

U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel is welcomed by Jordan's Chairman of Defense Lieutenant General Mashal al-Zaben, right, upon his arrival at Marka International Airport in Amman, Jordan, Wednesday, May 14, 2014. Hagel is on a regional tour focusing on Iran's nuclear programm and Syria's civil war. (AP Photo/Mandel Ngan, Pool)

Hagel reassures Persian Gulf allies

Associated Press

FILE - In this Jan. 27, 2014 file photo, U.N. mediator Lakhdar Brahimi listens during a press briefing at the United Nations headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. Brahimi will resign as the joint U.N.-Arab League envoy on Syria after a nearly two-year effort that failed to bring peace to the war-ravaged country, the U.N. chief announced Tuesday, May 13, 2014. He will step down May 31. (AP Photo/Anja Niedringhaus, File)

Syrian official welcomes UN mediator’s resignation

By ALBERT AJI - Associated Press

Dire situation: For Syrian refugees in Lebanon, the urgent need for food, water and shelter takes priority over concerns about sanitation, medical care and education. Photo by Omar Alkalouti

Syrian refugee influx outpaces aid in Lebanon

By Kaylyn Hlavaty — Special to The Washington Times

Secretary of State John Kerry listens as French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius speaks prior to their meeting at the State Department in Washington, Tuesday, May 13, 2014. (AP Photo/Molly Riley)

France: Syria launched 14 toxic attacks since Oct

Associated Press

LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Obama’s inverted priorities

By THE WASHINGTON TIMES

FILE - In this Wednesday, June 5, 2013 file photo released by the Syrian official news agency SANA, Syrian army troops hold up national flags in the town of Qusair, near the Lebanon border, Homs province, Syria. Two years ago, it seemed almost inevitable that President Bashar Assad would be toppled. Almost no one thinks that now. As he prepares for elections through which he is set to claim another seven-year mandate for himself, the momentum in the civil war is clearly in Assad's favor. (AP Photo/SANA, File)

Analysis: How Syria’s Assad seized momentum in war

By ZEINA KARAM - Associated Press

FILE - In this Wednesday, June 5, 2013 file photo released by the Syrian official news agency SANA, Syrian army troops hold up national flags in the town of Qusair, near the Lebanon border, Homs province, Syria. Two years ago, it seemed almost inevitable that President Bashar Assad would be toppled. Almost no one thinks that now. As he prepares for elections through which he is set to claim another seven-year mandate for himself, the momentum in the civil war is clearly in Assad's favor. (AP Photo/SANA, File)

Analysis: How Syria’s Assad seized momentum in war

By ZEINA KARAM - Associated Press

US sanctions Syrian government officials

By DEB RIECHMANN - Associated Press