Bullets rain on Syrian military hospital

Last week Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said that his regime has "no choice but victory."

BEIRUT — In another blow to President Bashar Assad, his commander of military police defected. The defector, Maj. Gen. Abdul-Aziz Jassem al-Shallal, is one of the most senior members of Assad’s inner circle to join the opposition during the 21-month-old uprising against authoritarian rule. He appeared in a video aired on Al-Arabiya TV late Tuesday saying the army has been turned into a gang to kill and destroy.

The head of Syria's military police has defected from the army and declared allegiance to the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad, according to a video and a Syrian security source.

A October car bombing that killed Lebanon's police chief hinted that the Syrian civil war had spilled over into the neighboring country, but now it appears to be official.

While rebels are beginning a assault to capture the last major government military installation in the country's north, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad remains defiant as ever.

BEIRUT — Israel’s weekend airstrike on a military complex near the Syrian capital of Damascus killed at least 42 Syrian soldiers, a group of anti-regime activists said Monday, citing information from military hospitals. The Syrian government has not released a death toll, but Syrian state media have reported casualties in Sunday’s pre-dawn airstrike, Israel’s third into Syria so far this year.

Afghanistan was once a magnet for eager young men who arrived from around the world to fight Soviet forces. Most later returned home to their every day lives, but some became infatuated with militancy and were drawn into al-Qaeda. Now Syria is attracting significant numbers of foreign fighters, hundreds from Western countries. And while most have joined mainstream rebel groups, some have turned up in extremist factions such as the Al Nusrah Front.