SYRIAN President Bashar al-Assad has vowed to strike “terrorists” with an iron fist and derided the Arab League for its attempts to halt violence in a 10-month-old revolt against his rule.

ELITE Syrian troops backed by helicopters and tanks yesterday regained control of a town where police and soldiers had joined forces with the protesters they were ordered to shoot.

THE five Irish citizens whose passport numbers were used on forged documents by the killers of a senior Hamas military commander are automatically named on a worldwide terror list, Foreign Minister Micheál Martin said.