Rebels

BEIRUT - A rebel military leader who was among the first to call openly for armed insurrection against President Bashar al-Assad was wounded by a bomb planted in his car in eastern Syria, rebels and activists said Monday. Col. Riad al-Asaad, leader of a now-sidelined rebel umbrella group known as the Free Syrian Army, had his right foot amputated after the blast late on Sunday, according to an activist in the town of Mayadeen where the attack took place. Louay Almokdad, a rebel spokesman, confirmed the attack to the Associated Press by phone and said the extent of the injury meant that amputation was likely, though he had not received confirmation it had been carried out. He said the colonel was in stable condition in Turkey.

BANGUI, Central African Republic - Rebels overthrew Central African Republic's president of a decade on Sunday, seizing the presidential palace and declaring that the desperately poor country has "opened a new page in its history. " The country's president fled the capital, while extra French troops moved to secure the airport, officials said. The rebels' invasion of the capital came just two months after they had signed a peace agreement that would have let President Francois Bozize serve until 2016.

BEIRUT - Syrian rebels on Saturday seized a major air defense base in a strategic region in the south near the Jordanian border, the latest battlefield triumph for fighters seeking to topple President Bashar al-Assad, activists said. Fighters with a rebel group active in the south stormed and seized control of the base used by the 38th Division after a 16-day siege, according to a statement posted on websites of the group known as the Yarmouk Martyrs Brigade. The base near the village of Saida is situated along the international highway linking the Syrian capital, Damascus, with Jordan to the south.

BEIRUT, Lebanon - Syria's government and rebels on Wednesday both demanded an international investigation into an alleged chemical-weapons attack, as the country's feared arsenal became the latest propaganda tool in the two-year-old civil war. President Obama said the United States was investigating whether chemical weapons had been deployed in Syria, but he said he was "deeply skeptical" of claims by President Bashar al-Assad's regime that rebel...

DAMASCUS, Syria - The government and rebels traded accusations Tuesday of a chemical attack on a northern village for the first time in the civil war, although the United States said there was no evidence it had happened. The use of such weapons would be a nightmare scenario in the two-year-old conflict, and the competing claims showed a willingness by both sides to go to new levels to seek support from world powers. One of the international community's biggest concerns is that Syria's arsenal of chemical weapons could be used by one side or the other, or could fall into the hands of foreign jihadi fighters among the rebels or the militant group Hezbollah, which is allied with the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

WASHINGTON - The Obama administration lent its support Monday to British and French plans to arm Syria's rebels, saying it wouldn't stand in the way of any country seeking to rebalance the fight against a regime supported by Russia, Iran, and Hezbollah. Secretary of State John Kerry said the longer Syria's war goes on, the greater the danger of its institutions collapsing and extremists getting their hands on the country's vast chemical weapons arsenal. With 450,000 Syrians living in neighboring countries as refugees already, he said the conflict is becoming a "global catastrophe.

BEIRUT, Lebanon - One of the highest-ranking military officers yet to abandon Syrian President Bashar al-Assad defected to neighboring Jordan and said in an interview aired Saturday that morale among those still inside the regime had collapsed. In another setback for the Assad regime, a leading human-rights group accused Syria's government of stepping up its use of widely banned cluster munitions, which often kill and wound civilians. The twin blows illustrated the slowly spreading cracks in Assad's regime as well as its deepening international isolation.

BEIRUT - On the second anniversary of Syria's uprising, there were only small protests and a few firecrackers defiantly popping in the capital of Damascus - a grim contrast to the early days when crowds of demonstrators danced to the drums of rebellion against President Bashar al-Assad. Syrians on Friday marked the start of the revolt by saying they feared for their country's future amid a grinding civil war that has killed tens of thousands, displaced millions, wrecked whole neighborhoods in cities and towns, and turned neighbor against neighbor.

China formally installs leader BEIJING - Capping a highly choreographed transition of power, Xi Jinping formally assumed the Chinese presidency Thursday after a vote at the National People's Congress. The 59-year-old son of a former vice premier was elected with an enviable margin of 2,952 votes in favor to one against. Under the Chinese political system, there is no formal inauguration. After the vote was announced in Beijing's Great Hall of the People, Xi bowed to the deputies and shook hands with his predecessor, Hu Jintao.

KANO, Nigeria - Radical Islamic fighters killed seven foreign hostages in Nigeria, European diplomats said Sunday, making it the worst such kidnapping violence in decades for a country beset by extremist guerrilla attacks. Nigeria's police, military, domestic spy service, and presidency remained silent over the killings of the construction company workers, kidnapped Feb. 16 from northern Bauchi state. The government's silence only led to more questions about the nation's continued inability to halt attacks that have seen hundreds killed in shootings, church bombings, and an attack on the United Nations.