More than 40 people have been killed by government forces in a village in north-western Syria, activists say. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and Violations Documentation Centre both listed the names of people they said were executed in al-Bayda, near the port of Baniyas, on Thursday. An online video appears to show seven bodies in pools of blood, but state media made no mention of any incidents. The main opposition group accused the government of a "large-scale massacre". "It is time for the world to intervene and put an end to the grievous crimes of the Assad regime," the National Coalition said in a statement. More»

The Palestinian resistance movement of the Islamic Jihad says that Israel’s recent attacks against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip will be reciprocated with the movement’s unexpected response. Abu Ahmed, the spokesman for the Quds Brigades (the armed wing of the Islamic Jihad), said on Tuesday that the movement would take the recent threats of the Tel Aviv regime seriously. Abu Ahmed stated that the recent attacks came after the Israeli regime’s defeat at the hands of the resistance movement and the challenges it faced in the region. Earlier in the day, Israeli warplanes bombed a motorbike near the Shati refugee camp in northwestern Gaza City, killing one Palestinian and injured another. More»

The head of Lebanese militant group Hezbollah has declared that Syria has real friends who will not let it fall to the US, Israel or Islamic radicals. Hassan Nasrallah said Syria's opposition was too weak to bring down Bashar al-Assad's regime militarily. He was speaking in an address broadcast on Hezbollah's TV station al-Manar. BBC Arab affairs analyst Sebastian Usher says the speech tacitly confirmed the group has been involved in fighting in neighbouring Syria. The Syrian opposition has long claimed the Iranian-backed Shia movement has been supplying fighters to help Mr Assad, a key Hezbollah backer. "A large number [of rebels] were preparing to capture villages inhabited by Lebanese... so it was normal to offer every possible and necessary aid to help the Syrian army," Mr Nasrallah was quoted as saying by AFP news agency. More»

A Palestinian militant has been killed in an Israeli air strike on Gaza City. Haytham al-Mishal, 29, was hit while riding a motorcycle. At least one other person was reportedly also injured. A militant group which fired rockets at the southern Israeli city of Eilat two weeks ago said Mishal had been one of its members. It is the first deadly air strike in Gaza since a ceasefire ended eight days of fighting between Israel and militants there in November. The incident comes after a rise in violence across the Israeli-Gaza border in recent days. Militants have fired several rockets across the border into Israel and Israel has carried out air strikes, with neither causing injuries. More»

At least 11 people were killed and dozens wounded when three car bombs tore through public markets in Shi'ite provinces in southern Iraq early on Monday, medics and police sources said. Sectarian tensions are at their highest since U.S. troops left Iraq more than a year ago and militant attacks have increased as the country's fragile intercommunal balance comes under growing strain from the civil war in neighboring Syria. More than 180 people have been killed since Tuesday, when security forces stormed a Sunni protest camp near Kirkuk, triggering clashes that quickly spread to other Sunni areas in western and northern provinces. Two of the explosions on Monday took place in Amara, 300 km (185 miles) southeast of Baghdad, killing at least nine people and wounding a further 40, medics and police sources said. More»

Fire broke out on Sunday in a garment factory that collapsed in the Bangladeshi capital, complicating attempts to find any survivors of a disaster that has killed 377 people. Fire service officials said the blaze had been started by sparks from cutting equipment used by rescuers. Police said the owner of the factory, Mohammed Sohel Rana, was arrested on Sunday trying to flee to India, as hopes of finding more survivors from the country's worst industrial accident began to fade. Rana was arrested by the elite Rapid Action Battalion in the border town of Benapole, Dhaka District Police Chief Habibur Rahman told Reuters, ending a four-day manhunt that began after Rana Plaza, which housed factories making low-cost garments for Western retailers, caved in on Wednesday. More»

Syrian Prime Minister Wael al-Halki survived a bomb attack that targeted his convoy in central Damascus on Monday, Syrian state media and Hezbollah's al-Manar television reported. "The terrorist explosion in al-Mezze was an attempt to target the convoy of the prime minister. Doctor Wael al-Halqi is well and not hurt at all," state television said. It had earlier reported that a "terrorist explosion" in the Mezze district, where many government and military institutions are situated and where senior Syrian officials live, had caused casualties. A picture uploaded by opposition activists showed thick black smoke rising from the purported site of the explosion. The Britain-based Syria Observatory for Human Rights, which has a network of sources across Syria, said initial reports indicated one person accompanying the prime minister had been killed. More»

A group of nations should get troops ready to invade Syria in order to secure possible stocks of chemical weapons, a senior U.S. senator said on Sunday. Senator John McCain, a Republican from Arizona, said U.S. troops should not go into Syria, but that an international force must “be ready operationally” to go in and prevent Islamic militants involved in Syria’s civil war from getting their hands on chemical weapons. “There are number of caches of these chemical weapons. They cannot fall into the hands of the jihadists,” McCain, who was the 2008 Republican presidential candidate and is an influential voice on military issues in the U.S. Senate, told NBC’s Meet The Press. More than 70,000 people have died in Syria’s two-year-old civil war, and the White House said on Thursday the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad had probably used chemical weapons on a small scale in the conflict. Syria denies using chemical weapons in the war. More»

"This is where we are standing now, Martyrs Square. Back then it was called Piazza Roma," the 31-year old history masters student said, referring to Libya's Italian colonial days. "Such books were forbidden before because they told the true history of Libya - Gaddafi did not want that. I bought many such books today." Hussein was one of the hundreds of Libyans who descended on the capital's Martyrs Square this week to browse through thousands of books in Tripoli's first major second hand book sale after the 2011 war that ousted Gaddafi. With live traditional music in the background, the crowd huddled around tables, perused and bought books about history, philosophy, geography, poetry, cooking, martial arts and novels. Organisers of the three-day fair, who will use the funds to build a mobile library that will visit schools, said Western books sold out first on the first day - namely the "Harry Potter" collection. More»

The European Union's counter-terrorism coordinator says at least 500 Europeans are fighting along with the foreign-backed militants against Syria EU’s anti-terror chief Gilles de Kerchove told British media on Wednesday that some 500 Europeans were in Syria, to fight against the government of President Bashar al-Assad. He said that Britain, Ireland and France were among the EU countries to have the highest numbers of militants in Syria. He also warned that the Europeans who have joined the militants in Syria would most likely be radicalized there and would be a serious threat when they get back to their countries. On Monday, the EU foreign ministers met in Luxemburg and eased EU’s oil embargo against Syria to assist the foreign-backed militants. Under the deal, European countries will be allowed to purchase oil from the militants in Syria and in turn provide them with funds needed to buy more weapons. More»