Jordanian security forces are scrambling to deal with a range of internal and external security threats. On Monday, a Jordanian soldier was killed as government troops battled with armed militants crossing the border between Jordan and Syria, heightening fears that Syria’s civil war would spill into into Jordan. Meanwhile, Jordanian...

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The assassination of anti-Syrian Lebanon official Wissam Al-Hassan threatens to send Lebanon spiraling into another sectarian civil war, as rioting erupted in the aftermath of his Sunday funeral. Hassan, who was closely linked to the March 14 movement and the Cedar Revolution that expelled Syrian troops from Lebanon, was murdered...

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Syrian government forces demolished the northern Syrian town of Maarat al-Noaman, which had been taken over by rebels last week. The New York Times described the scene as a “horror”: “Men stumbled over rubble, carrying single bones nearly shorn of flesh and shredded body parts barely identifiable as human… ....

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A massive car bomb shook Beirut this morning, exploding in the predominantly Christian district of Ashrafiya and killing at least eight. The explosion threatens to reignite the sectarian tensions that were behind the country’s destructive civil war and which continue to plague the country. The security situation in Lebanon has...

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U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice insisted at a United Nations Security Council meeting yeserday that Hezbollah is part of Syrian ruler Bashar al-Assad’s “killing machine” and must be countered firmly by the international community. The ambassador’s stance echoes that of the Israeli Ambassador to the U.N. Ron Prosor,...

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Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Ron Prosor harshly criticized the U.N. yesterday over the Security Council’s failure to condemn Hamas’s escalating rocket fire campaign. The decision contrasted with the UNSC’s prompt condemnation of the Syrian rockets that recently struck Turkey. Prosor’s criticism echoes similar comments made by the ambassador last February, when...

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The civil war in Syria is increasingly turning into a proxy war between regional powers, with Saudi Arabia and Turkey backing the opposition and Iran backing the regime, and it increasingly threatens to expand beyond Syria’s borders. The BBC reports that one of its teams found a cache of weapons...

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The United Nations Security Council condemned this week’s cross-border mortar fire from Syria into Turkey, in which five Turkish civilians were killed. Calling on Syria to “fully respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity” of its neighbors, the UNSC stressed the “grave impact the crisis in Syria has on the security...

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The Syrian civil war also impacted the Syrian-Israeli border yesterday, as dozens of armed men congregated on the Syrian side of the cease-fire line on the Golan Heights. The provocation, which led Israel to promptly shut down a tourist site as a precaution, follows several mortar shells which were fired into...

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Syria and Turkey exchanged fire yesterday, after Turkey shelled direct targets in response to a Syrian-fired mortar which killed five Turkish civilians. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused the Syrian regime of a “provocation” targeting Turkish “national security,” while Turkey’s deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc suggested Turkey would pursue...

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