Five people were killed and more than 50 wounded in overnight clashes in Tripoli between Lebanese gunmen backing rival factions in Syria's civil war, doctors and security sources said on Thursday. Tripoli has suffered sporadic sectarian violence since the Sunni Muslim-led uprising against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad broke out in March 2011, but after a night of mortar, grenade and machinegun fire, residents said this was the fiercest so far. At least 18 people have been killed and more than 170 wounded in the Lebanese port city since the latest bout of fighting started on Sunday. The use of heavy weapons stopped as the sun rose on Thursday and only the sound of sniper fire could be heard. The militant groups tend to fight through the night and rest by day. Sunnis sympathetic to Syrian rebels live in a district of Tripoli overlooked by a hilltop neighborhood home to minority Alawites, the offshoot of Shi'ite Islam to which Assad belongs. The two groups have clashed in Tripoli on and off for decades, but the Syrian conflict has reopened old wounds, with each side accusing the other of using the city as a base for sending fighters and weapons in and out of Syria. Syrian activists said the fighting in Tripoli flared after a fierce assault by Assad's forces on the rebel-held Syrian border town of Qusair, where fighters from Lebanon's Shi'ite Hezbollah movement are battling alongside Syrian troops. More»

At least four people have been killed in clashes in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli, a security source told AFP, as fighting raged into a fourth day on Wednesday. The source also reported that 35 people were wounded in the fighting between Sunni and Alawite residents of the flashpoint town on Tuesday. The dead included two Sunni residents of the Bab el-Tebbaneh district, a third Sunni from elsewhere in the city, and an Alawite resident of the Jabal Mohsen neighborhood, the source said. Local media reported that the overall death toll since the violence erupted on Sunday stood at 10, eight civilians and two Lebanese soldiers. The army has been deployed in the area since the outbreak but has failed to halt the fighting in the town, where clashes have frequently broken out since the March 2011 beginning of the conflict in neighboring Syria. The largely Sunni city is home to a small community of Alawites, an offshoot of Shiite Islam to which Syrian President Bashar al-Assad belongs. More»

Israeli troops shot at a target across the Syrian frontier on Tuesday in response to gunfire that struck its forces in the Golan Heights, the Israeli military said. A statement said a military vehicle was damaged by shots fired from Syria but that there were no injuries. It said that soldiers "returned precise fire". Gunfire incidents across the frontier from Syria have recurred in past months during an escalating a civil war there in which rebels have sought to topple President Bashar al-Assad. Israel's Army Radio said Tuesday's was the third consecutive cross-border shooting this week. The Israeli military added in its statement that it viewed these incidents "with concern". Israel captured the Golan territory from Syria in a 1967 war and later annexed the area. Negotiations aimed at resolving that conflict ran aground in 2000. Israel has not taken sides in Syria's internal conflict, but has been worried about the involvement of its Iranian-backed foe, Hezbollah, in the fighting. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held out the prospect on Sunday of Israeli strikes inside Syria to stop Hezbollah and other opponents of Israel getting advanced weapons. More»

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held out the prospect of further Israeli strikes inside Syria, pledging to act to prevent advanced weapons from reaching Hezbollah and other militant groups. Although Israel has not publicly taken sides in the civil war between Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and rebels trying to topple him, Western and Israeli sources say it has launched air strikes in Syria to destroy weapons it believed were destined for Lebanon's Hezbollah. In public remarks at the weekly meeting of his cabinet, Netanyahu made no direct mention of those attacks, but made clear Israel was prepared to take action in the future and said it was "preparing for every scenario" in the Syrian conflict. Israel had set a policy "to prevent, as much as possible, the leakage of advanced weapons to Hezbollah and terror elements", he said. "We will act to ensure the security interest of Israel's citizens in the future as well," Netanyahu added, describing his government's actions as "responsible, determined and level-headed". More»

Saudi Arabia will import near record high diesel volumes this summer, as it gears up to beat the sweltering heat and meet rising travel needs during the fasting month of Ramadan, trade sources said. State oil giant Saudi Aramco will import up to 8.9 million barrels of diesel in June, up from an estimated 6.7 to 7.5 million barrels in May, according to the sources, who expect at least the same volume or higher to be booked for July. Top oil exporter Saudi Arabia shipped in record diesel volumes of 8.99 million barrels in July, 2011, up from 8.13 million in June that year, government data published from 2002 through the Joint Organisations Data Initiative showed. "I think this year, the July, 2011 number might be surpassed as Saudi's diesel demand is growing every year and their new refinery is not expected at least until later this year," a Gulf-based trader said. Higher overseas purchases by Saudi Arabia should help boost spot premiums and support weak Asian gasoil margins as Aramco imports from countries such as India and Singapore. More»

A series of bomb blasts across Iraq has left at least 34 people dead. 24 were massacred in a series of car bombs across the predominantly Shi’ite city of Baghdad, while 10 others were killed in in Basra, in the south of the country on Monday. Over 130 have been wounded in the multiple blasts, with 112 in the country’s capital, and 27 In Basra, 420 km (260 miles) southeast of Baghdad. The nine separate car bombs struck bus stops, and market places in busy Shi’ite populated regions of Baghdad, while the two in Basra targeted a restaurant and a bus stop. More»

Nineteen people were killed on Friday when a roadside bomb exploded near a commercial complex in the Amiriya district in the west of Baghdad, police and medics said. Earlier on Friday, two bombs went off outside a Sunni Muslim mosque in Baquba as worshippers left Friday prayers, killing at least 43 people in one of the deadliest attacks in a month-long surge in sectarian violence. More»

The most feared and effective rebel group battling President Bashar al-Assad, the Islamist Nusra Front, is being eclipsed by a more radical jihadi force whose aims go far beyond overthrowing the Syrian leader. Al Qaeda's Iraq-based wing, which nurtured Nusra in the early stages of the rebellion against Assad, has moved in and sidelined the organization, Nusra sources and other rebels say. Al Qaeda in Iraq includes thousands of foreign fighters whose ultimate goal is not toppling Assad but the anti-Western jihad of al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri - a shift which could extend Syria's conflict well beyond any political accord between Assad and his foes. The fighting has already cost 90,000 lives. The break-up of an important part of Syria's opposition, already splintered into hundreds of armed groups, worsens the dilemma faced by the West as it debates whether intervention to support the rebels will result in arms being placed in the hands of hostile Islamist militants. And if the West were to intervene, it may now be under pressure to attack al Qaeda opposition forces rather than Assad. More»

On the surface, the Arab League’s improved peace initiative offers Israel everything it ever dreamed of — normal relations with an entire region that has long objected to the very existence of the Jewish state, and even the chance to keep some war-won land. But two weeks after U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry persuaded Arab leaders to reissue their 2002 offer with new incentives, Israel is maintaining a striking silence, and critics are accusing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of missing a historic chance. “We are speaking of an opportunity that must be seized to renew the diplomatic process,” former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told The Associated Press in a statement. “It’s a very important development.” When it was first issued in 2002, the initiative was a breakthrough. It countered the Arab League’s famous “Three No’s” that followed the 1967 Mideast war, when Israel captured the West Bank and east Jerusalem from Jordan, the Sinai Peninsula and Gaza Strip from Egypt and the Golan Heights from Syria. At a summit in Khartoum, Sudan, the Arab countries passed a resolution saying no peace, recognition or negotiations with Israel. More»

The U.N. General Assembly is set to vote on Wednesday on a draft resolution that condemns Syrian authorities and accepts the opposition Syrian National Coalition as party to a potential political transition. Russia, a close ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, is opposed to the resolution, which was drafted by Qatar and other Arab nations and circulated among the 193 U.N. member states. Some Western diplomats said it was unlikely to win as many votes as a resolution that passed last year with 133 in favor. No country has a veto in the General Assembly. "I'm convinced a lot of countries voted for this text because they believed they were voting for the winning side," a senior western U.N. diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, said in reference to the August, 2012 resolution. "They are not so sure anymore." "Now also you have the Islamist, terrorist factor which is much more conspicuous," he said. More»