Libyan Rebels Celebrate Victory in Ajdabiya

Celebrations are under way in the Libyan town of Ajdabiya, where rebels have regained control following a barrage of coalition airstrikes against pro-Gadhafi forces.

Rebel fighters and civilians danced on top of tanks, fired guns into the air and honked car horns Saturday (more…)

Mourners burn Baath Party headquarters in south Syria

Thousands of mourners in the village of Tafas, just north of the southern Syrian town of Daraa, burned the local Baath Party headquarters and a police station on Saturday during the funeral of a protester killed a day earlier, residents said. (more…)

Protests in Syria: Road to Damascus

AS RECENTLY as Thursday, few were willing to predict whether calls for protests in solidarity with the people of Deraa would spread across the rest of Syria. Security forces have killed at least 37 people in Deraa, a city at the heart of a farming region in the south, about an hour’s drive from the capital, since people there took to the street a week ago. (more…)

Calls for new popular uprisings throughout Syria

A Facebook group that has been calling for recent protests in Syria posted calls for new “popular uprisings” in all cities in the country Saturday, a day after Syrian troops reportedly opened fire at peaceful protesters at deadly demonstrations. (more…)

Syrian authorities release 260 prisoners

Syrian authorities released 260 prisoners, mostly Islamists, from Saydnaya jail on Friday, a human rights lawyer said. (more…)

Chamoun holds Nasrallah responsible for Bahraini decision

MP Dori Chamoun, the National Liberal Party leader said in an interview Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Anbaa that the Lebanese government should hold Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah responsible for Bahrain’s decision to suspend flights to Lebanon and to prevent its citizens from visiting Lebanon.

“Nasrallah decides on his own the destiny of the Lebanese government and the Lebanese people,” he said (more…)

Hezbollah: March 14 decided to overthrow Mikati’s cabinet

Hezbollah MP Nawwaf Moussawi said on Saturday that the March 14 coalition has decided to overthrow Prime Minister-designate Najib Mikati’s cabinet before it is formed, regardless of who the ministers are and what the Ministerial Statement would be like. (more…)

MP Houri warns Mikati about committing political suicide

March 14 MP Ammar Houri told OTV on Saturday that the president will not sign off on any cabinet that he will view as unacceptable.

“We trust that President Michel Suleiman will not sign a decree [approving] an unacceptable cabinet,” he said (more…)

Syrian troops storm protest sit-in near Damascus

Security troops stormed a protest sit-in near the capital Damascus, arresting about 200 people in the midnight raid, activists said Saturday, the latest violence in the unrelenting crackdown on protests that have spread to this Mideast country. (more…)

ANALYSIS-Little U.S. can do to halt Syria violence

With virtually no leverage in Damascus , it is unclear how much Washington can influence events or whether it would even try unless there were mass casualties