Opposition: Syrian regime slaughters scores

BEIRUT — Syria’s Western-backed opposition plunged into disarray on Sunday as its president resigned and its military leader refused to recognize a prime minister recently elected to lead an interim rebel government.

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 – Syrian warplanes bombed rebel areas near Damascus on Thursday as President Bashar Assad’s troops battled opposition fighters for control of the road linking the capital to the country’s largest airport. Assad’s forces are trying drive out rebels who have established enclaves in the suburbs. While the government has lost control of large swaths of territory in the country’s north and east, including parts of the northern city of Aleppo, the capital remains tightly secured.

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.

Already devastated by weeks of incessant attacks this year, the Syrian city of Homs faced new terror Sunday as pro-regime forces executed 10 young men in the dissident stronghold, opposition activists said.

The instances in which chemical weapons are alleged to have been used in Syria were purportedly small in scale: nothing along the lines of Saddam Hussein’s 1988 attack in Kurdish Iraq that killed thousands. That raises the question of who would stand to gain as President Bashar Assad’s regime and the opposition trade blame for the alleged attacks, and proof remains elusive.

On Syria’s digital battlefield, hackers loyal to Syrian PresidentBashar al-Assad are defeating the rebels' cyber militias.