New Violence in Syria

BEIRUT – Syria’s state-run TV says an explosion has struck the main university in the northern city of Aleppo, causing casualties. The report didn’t give further details about Tuesday’s blast or specify the number of victims. Aleppo is Syria’s largest city and a former commercial hub. It has been a major front in the country’s civil war since July, with frequent battles between regime troops and rebels fighting to topple President Bashar Assad.

Peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi held "constructive" talks in Syria with President Bashar al-Assad, as Washington warned that his regime's days are numbered. As jihadists seized an area populated by the embattled leader's Alawite community, the opposition National Coalition accused Damascus of committing a "massacre" of dozens of civilians in the bombing of a bakery.

UNITED NATIONS — A group of armed fighters linked to the Syrian opposition detained more than 20 U.N. peacekeepers Wednesday in the increasingly volatile zone separating Israeli and Syrian troops on the Golan Heights. The U.N. Security Council demanded their immediate and unconditional release.

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.

DAMASCUS, Syria — A powerful bomb rocked Damascus on Tuesday, killing 13 people and wounding 70, Syrian state TV reported, a day after the country’s prime minister narrowly escaped an assassination attempt in the heart of the heavily protected capital.

After 23 months the Syrian civil war has become an increasingly volatile stalemate with no end in sight.

Human Rights Watch Monday accused Syrian authorities of using "excessive force" in a crackdown on anti-regime protesters that killed five people over the past three days.The US-based rights watchdog said in a statement that "Syria should cease use of live fire and other excessive force against protesters" following the violence in Daraa, 100 kilometres (60 miles) south of the capital Damascus."The Syrian government has shown no qualms about shooting dead its own citizens for speaking out," said Sarah Leah Whitson, HRW's Middle East and North Africa director.

Syrian security forces fired tear gas Saturday on mourners burying two men who were killed in an earlier protest in the southern city of Daraa, wounding several, rights activists said.The latest violence came as a Facebook page, one of the motors behind an unprecedented string of protests in Syria, called for a Saturday rally in the city of Homs, north of Damascus.