Lebanese security forces have arrested a suspect in connection with the devastating double bombing the day before that killed at least 47 people in the northern city of Tripoli, the state news agency said

Government forces have killed at least 18 rebels in clashes in central Syria, activists said.

Syrian government warplanes bombed a predominantly Sunni village and killed at least 20 people, opposition activists said, as government forces pushed to retake territory in the western heartland of President Bashar Assad’s Alawite sect.

Syrian government forces backed by Lebanese Hezbollah militants are tightening their grip on a key rebel district in central Syria, activists say.

Twin car bombs have ripped through a Damascus suburb killing and wounding dozens of people.

At least seven people were killed and dozens wounded in gun battles in the Lebanese capital Beirut and coastal Tripoli in further unrest linked to the conflict in neighbouring Syria.

Troops in Lebanon have begun a major security operation to force gunmen off the streets, trying to contain the violence prompted by the murder of a top intelligence official.

Syrian president Bashar Assad has insisted his regime will not fall and also lashed out at Gulf countries, which he accused of using their enormous oil wealth to try to drive him from power.

Syrian activists have claimed rebels shot down a government warplane over the northern province of Idlib on Thursday, the second time in a week that opposition fighters claimed to have brought down an aircraft in the escalating civil war.

Fighting has continued to rage on between government forces and rebels close the Syrian capital today.

Syria’s prime minister completed his defection by crossing into Jordan at dawn today after two days of hiding inside his homeland, according to Jordanian officials and a spokesman for the rebel Free Syrian Army.

Syria’s prime minister has defected to the opposition seeking to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad, marking one of the highest profile desertions from the Damascus government.

A bomb ripped through the third floor of the state TV building in Damascus today, damaging several offices and wounding at least three employees, Syrian TV said.

Gunmen snatched 47 Iranian pilgrims just outside Damascus in a brazen attack that revealed the growing instability at the centre of President Bashar Assad’s power.

The Reuters photographs of lines of bodies at Ali Bin al-Hussein’s mosque in Huola in Syria put our debate about this week’s EU referendum into perspective.

President Bashar Assad’s forces killed at least 50 civilians, including 13 children, in central Syria, activists said.

AT least a dozen Syrian secret police have defected from an intelligence compound, activists said, in what appeared to be the first major desertion from a service that has acted as a pillar of President Bashar al-Assad’s rule.

SYRIA has entered a state of civil war with more than 4,000 people dead and an increasing number of soldiers defecting from the army to take up arms against President Bashar Assad’s regime, the UN’s top human rights official has warned.

A Syrian peace plan brokered by the Arab League unravelled tonight as security forces killed 15 people, opening fire on thousands of protesters who denounced President Bashar Assad and said he never intended to hold up his end of the deal to end the violence.

Syrian security forces killed at least 20 protesters today despite promises by President Bashar Assad that the military operations against the five-month-old uprising are over.

Arab-world outrage at Syria’s brutal crackdown has intensified as, for the first time, its neighbours joined the international chorus of condemnation against President Bashar Assad’s regime.

Syrian troops backed by dozens of tanks have massed outside a virtually deserted town near the Turkish border, preparing to move in against protesters.

A SYRIAN mother-of-six who opened the door to a secret policeman in the border town of Deraa just had time to scream “Israelis are more merciful than you” before he shot her dead, relatives said.