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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The Financial Action Task Force (FATF), an intergovernmental organization charged with combating money laundering and terrorist financing, may blacklist Turkey for “inadequate monitoring of bank transfers and unwillingness to freeze accounts” associated with terrorist activities. Turkey has responded by insisting that while the country intends to implement FATF rules, “parliament’s...

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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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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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