Syrian troops and rebels fought the heaviest battles in months in Syria’s largest city, Aleppo, today.

Clashes between Syrian rebels and regime forces erupted today near a village where UN peacekeepers are being held hostage, an activist said, possibly complicating efforts to free them.

Syrian rebels are battling President Bashar Assad’s forces for control of the main airport in the northern city of Aleppo, activists say.

Syrian rebels captured the country’s largest dam today after days of intense clashes, giving them control over water and electricity supplies for much of the country in a major blow to Bashar Assad’s regime.

An activist group says a bombing of a military factory in central Syria this week has killed 54 people.

An activist group says a bombing of a military factory in central Syria this week has killed 54 people.

Syrian government troops battled rebels in several areas outside Damascus today while regime warplanes bombed opposition-held areas around the capital, including an airstrike on one village that killed at least seven people, activists said.

Syrian troops fought intense battles today against rebels who are trying to capture two military bases in the northwest and step up their attacks on army compounds elsewhere in the nation, activists said.

Hundreds of Islamic militants fighting to topple Syrian President Bashar Assad seized parts of a strategic north-western air base today after weeks of battling government troops for control of the sprawling facility.

Syrian rebels have captured a helicopter base near the capital Damascus.

Syrian rebels made a new push into Damascus today, clashing heavily with troops in the rebellious suburbs of the capital and firing mortars at a presidential palace and a Palestinian refugee camp, activists said.

At least 30 people were killed and dozens of others injured when an air strike by Syrian forces hit a gas station in the north of the country and triggered an explosion.

Syrian rebels waged fierce battles with regime troops in a town along the Iraqi border today, capturing a string of security posts and the local police headquarters despite heavy government shelling and bombing runs by warplanes, activists said.

Syrian rebels have pulled out of villages around the besieged mountainous town of Haffa after days of fierce shelling, a rights group said today.

Syrian activists reported a surge of bloodshed in the central Hama province, with at least 23 people killed - and possibly many more.

Syrian troops have shelled a southern village and clashed with army defectors holed up inside in violence that killed a 15-year-old boy and five government soldiers, activists said.

Syria’s military today sent tanks and other reinforcements towards the city of Homs in what appears to be preparations by President Bashar Assad’s regime for an offensive aimed at retaking rebel-held neighbourhoods, activists said.

At least 14 people were killed today when a string of explosions struck a police truck transporting prisoners in a tense area of north-western Syria, the country's state-run news agency and an opposition group said.

Syrian security forces pursuing anti-government protesters stormed a northern village today, killing at least one person and wounding many others during raids and house-to-house searches, activists said.

Syria today rejected US and European calls for President Bashar Assad to step down, saying they revealed the “face of the conspiracy” targeting Damascus for its key role in the Middle East and the Arab-Israeli conflict.

SYRIAN forces opened fire at funerals for slain political protesters, a human rights activist said yesterday, leaving two more people dead as Syria tries to subdue weeks of demonstrations against President Bashar Assad.

Syrian forces opened fire at funerals for slain political protesters, a human rights activist said today, leaving two more people dead as the country tries to subdue weeks of demonstrations against President Bashar Assad.

Gunfire and shelling rattled a city in central Syria today killing a 12-year-old boy, as President Bashar Assad’s autocratic regime expanded its military crackdown on a seven-week-old uprising, activists said.

An Iraqi judge postponed a session in which Saddam Hussein’s former deputy Taha Yassin Ramadan had been expected to be sentenced to death today after lawyers for the plaintiffs failed to show up.

Iraq’s High Tribunal today found Saddam Hussein guilty of crimes against humanity and sentenced him to hang for the 1982 killing of 148 Shiites in the city of Dujail. The visibly shaken former leader shouted “God is great”.

A Kurdish security officer testifying in Saddam Hussein’s genocide trial in Baghdad, Iraq, today showed the court body burns he allegedly received when armies of the deposed leader attacked his northern Iraqi village in 1988.

The chief judge in Saddam Hussein’s trial today brushed aside prosecution demands to step down for letting the ex-president make political statements, as more witnesses told of chemical attacks against Kurds – a charge for which the ex-president could receive a death sentence.

The US military has launched an investigation into claims that American forces shot dead 15 members of two families, including a three year-old-girl, shortly after a roadside bomb killed a US Marine in a western Iraqi town.

Six people were killed and 10 wounded when a car bomb exploded near Baghdad’s Ministry of Education today.

Gunmen killed the deputy governor of Baghdad today on his way to work, Iraqi officials said.

Around 50 Iraqi soldiers were killed execution-style after insurgents intercepted minibuses carrying them home on leave, officials said today.

A car bomb exploded near an entrance to Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone that is home to the US embassy and Iraqi government buildings today, killing at least 15 people and wounding 81.

THREE bombs exploded at a neighbourhood celebration in western Baghdad yesterday, killing 35 children and seven adults, officials said.

Iraqi authorities expressed surprise and disappointment today at reports that Pentagon lawyers have determined that Saddam Hussein has been a prisoner of war since American forces captured him last month.