Syria

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This citizen journalism image from Aug. 29, 2013, shows a United Nations investigation team taking samples of suspected chemical weapons in Syria. (AP Photo)

Destruction of Syrian chemicals a work in progress

By MIKE CORDER - Associated Press

FILE - In this Sunday, April 20, 2014 file photo, released by the Syrian official news agency SANA, Syrian President Bashar Assad, right, visits the Christian village of Maaloula, near Damascus, 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)

Assad Facebook page displays letter of support from Virginia state senator

By Matthew Cella - The Washington Times

Hezbollah commander wanted by FBI killed in Syria

By BASSEM MROUE - Associated Press

Va. state Sen. pens letter to Syrian president

Associated Press

President Barack Obama pauses while delivering the commencement address to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point's Class of 2014, in West Point, N.Y., Wednesday, May 28, 2014. In a broad defense of his foreign policy, the president declared that the U.S. remains the world's most indispensable nation, even after a &quot;long season of war,&quot; but argued for restraint before embarking on more military adventures. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

Obama defends Afghan pullback, outreach to Syria

By Dave Boyer and Ben Wolfgang - The Washington Times

Chemical weapons watchdog says its inspectors came under attack in Syria but are safe

Associated Press

The next steps: President Obama wants to keep 9,800 U.S. troops in Afghanistan after military operations formally end this year, part of his plan of "finishing the job we started." Meanwhile, he will send military advisers to Syria. (ASSOCIATED PRESS)

Obama to push Syria escalation; most U.S. troops to leave Afghanistan by end of 2016

By Dave Boyer - The Washington Times

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

FILE -- In this August 26, 2013, file Photo, a U.N. team, that is scheduled to investigate an alleged chemical attack that killed hundreds last week in a Damascus suburb, leaves their hotel in a convoy, in Damascus, Syria. In a statement issued Tuesday, May 27, 2014, by the chemical weapons watchdog that is overseeing the dismantling of Syria's chemical weapons program, said a convoy of its inspectors has come under attack, but all are safe. The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons said that the inspectors had been traveling to the site of an alleged chlorine gas attack site when they were attacked. (AP Photo, File)

Chemical weapons inspectors attacked in Syria

By ALBERT AJI and TOBY STERLING - Associated Press

Moroccan police nab 3 for helping Syria militants

Associated Press

In this photo provided by the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano, Pope Francis is welcomed upon his arrival in Amman, Jordan, Saturday, May 24, 2014. (AP Photo/L'Osservatore Romano, ho)

Pope lands in Jordan, calls for greater Christian-Muslim coexistence in Middle East

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 photo from March 11, 2012, Syrian rebels celebrate the destruction of a military tank during a day of heavy fighting with Syrian government forces in Idlib, north Syria. Syrian activists said that pro-government gunmen have killed several people including children in a rebel stronghold recaptured by the government in the embattled central city of Homs. (Associated Press)

U.S.-armed rebel group seeks ‘all Syrian land occupied by Israel’

By Adam Kredo — The Washington Free Beacon

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

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

House's top investigator issued a subpoena Thursday demanding that Secretary of State John F. Kerry appear before Congress at the end of this month to answer questions about whether he stonewalled a Benghazi investigation. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, pool)

Kerry: ‘We’re not going to pin ourselves down’ if Assad continues to use chemical weapons

By Douglas Ernst - The Washington Times

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