| March 18, 2011 |
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Police open fire on demonstrators in the southern city of Dara, as the government moves to quash the protests that have taken place in five Syrian cities in recent days, including the capital of Damascus. Protesters are calling for the release of political prisoners and increased freedom. |
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| March 23, 2011 |
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Witnesses report 15 people are killed as protests continue in Dara, now the epicenter of unrest. The city is effectively sealed off, with entrance restricted to security forces. |
 Louai Beshara / AFP/Getty Images |
| March 25, 2011 |
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Dozens of demonstrators are killed in Damascus, according to witnesses. Protests have not yet spread nationwide as President Bashar Assad still enjoys broad support. |
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| March 29, 2011 |
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Assad dissolves his cabinet and promises reforms in an attempt to appease protesters. But he does not lift the emergency ban on public dissent, further inciting anger. |
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| April 1, 2011 |
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Thousands of Syrians flood the streets of several major cities for a new round of anti-government protests, defying security forces who use gunfire and tear gas in an attempt to disperse them. |
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| April 7, 2011 |
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Assad promises citizenship and increased rights to hundreds of thousands of Kurdish minorities, hoping to dissuade them from joining the protests. |
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| April 8, 2011 |
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Protests nationwide -- including the first uprisings in Aleppo, Syria's second-largest city -- are the largest and deadliest thus far. Demonstrators begin calling for an end to Assad's regime. |
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| April 10, 2011 |
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At least three people are killed and scores wounded as security forces keep up their assault on the coastal town of Baniyas, where anti-government protests have been gaining momentum. |
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| April 18, 2011 |
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Thousands join a politically charged funeral procession for at least 20 protesters reportedly shot and killed by security forces in the city of Homs. Smaller demonstrations are reported in other cities. |
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| April 19, 2011 |
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The newly appointed cabinet endorses proposals that appear to broaden civil liberties -- among them, lifting a 48-year-old state of emergency that restricts civil liberties, abolishing a powerful security court and regulating political gatherings. But security forces continue their violent crackdown and the cabinet warns residents not to protest. |
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| April 22, 2011 |
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Tens of thousands of peaceful protesters pour into the streets of Syrian cities only to be met with bullets and tear gas. At least 88 people around the country are killed, according to a prominent human rights lawyer. |
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| April 29, 2011 |
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Despite government warnings against any civil disobedience, protesters across the country strike out in a "Friday of Rage" after noon prayers to protest Assad's authoritarian regime and its violent crackdown on democracy advocates. |
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| May 5, 2011 |
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Syrian authorities intensify a crackdown on opposition activist, arresting hundreds of people ahead of another planned day of demonstrations. |
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| May 8, 2011 |
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Syrian forces loyal to President Bashar Assad appear determined to stop persistent anti-government protests, with clashes in several cities leading to several deaths, scores of injuries and hundreds of arrests. |
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| May 13, 2011 |
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In a show of strength, the popular movement opposing Syrian President Bashar Assad took to the streets in large numbers nationwide, defying a campaign of violence and mass detentions by security forces. |
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| May 18, 2011 |
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Ratcheting up pressure to halt a bloody crackdown on pro-democracy protesters, the Obama administration for the first time slaps economic sanctions on Syrian President Bashar Assad and his top aides. |
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| May 20, 2011 |
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Syrian security forces loyal to President Bashar Assad, ignoring international pressure, fire on anti-government protesters, killing at least 34 on a day activists try to draw the country's Kurdish minority into the nationwide movement for political change. |
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| May 29, 2011 |
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Syrian forces attack several towns, killing at least nine people as protests continue against the embattled regime of President Bashar Assad. |
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| June 3, 2011 |
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Thousands of anti-government protesters march in Damascus, Homs and other Syrian cities in opposition to President Bashar Assad, chanting, "These are the last days of your season." |
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| June 10, 2011 |
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Syria plunged deeper into chaos as security forces continued to open fire on peaceful pro-democracy protesters, and refugees fled into the countryside and across the border to Turkey. At least 48 people were reported to have been killed, according to pro-democracy activists. |
 Borzou Daragahi / Los Angeles Times |
| June 24, 2011 |
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Syrian security officers open fire on protesters, leaving as many as 20 dead, as people pour into the streets across the nation in defiance of President Bashar Assad and his promise of limited reform. |
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| July 1, 2011 |
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At least 24 Syrian protesters are killed when security forces fire on demonstrators in cities across the country. |
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| July 4, 2011 |
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Syrian tanks, troops and bulldozers enter Hama, a city that has long been a potent symbol of the nation's pro-democracy movement, raiding houses and hunting down activists opposed to President Bashar Assad's rule. |
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| July 15, 2011 |
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Syria security forces attack protesters across the country. At least 27 people are reported killed, according to activists, many in the suburbs of Damascus and areas near the capital. |
 Shaam News Network An image provided to Shaam News Network is said to show protesters in the central city of Hama. |
| July 22, 2011 |
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Massive protests erupted throughout Syria after noon prayers, as security forces continued to hammer the rebellious central city of Homs with intense gunfire. |
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| July 29, 2011 |
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Massive protests are reported across Syria, as opposition activists gear up for increased confrontation expected next week with the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. |
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| Aug. 3, 2011 |
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Syrian troops move tanks into the heart of the rebellious city of Hama, intensifying a days-long assault on a city that symbolizes resistance to President Bashar Assad. |
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| Aug. 14, 2011 |
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Syrian forces for the first time deploy naval power in an attempt to quell an anti-government uprising in the coastal city of Latakia, where protests recently intensified. |
 Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty Images |
| Aug. 15, 2011 |
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According to activists, Syrian security forces in Latakia herd thousands of people into a stadium and take away their identification cards and cellphones. |
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| Aug. 18, 2011 |
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President Obama calls for President Bashar Assad to give up power. |
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| Aug. 19, 2011 |
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Protesters throughout Syria join in large, boisterous and peaceful rallies, defying a bloody government crackdown that continues despite international calls for the ouster of President Bashar Assad. |
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| Aug. 27, 2011 |
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Security forces in the Syrian capital increase checkpoints, troop deployments and helicopter patrols in a bid to keep an overnight surge of antigovernment protests in the suburbs from spreading to the heart of Damascus. |
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| Aug. 30, 2011 |
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The final days of Ramadan saw a surge in protests and alleged killings by President Assad's forces, with 23 people slain from Monday afternoon to Tuesday afternoon, according to the Local Coordinating Committees opposition coalition. |
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| Sept. 7, 2011 |
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At least 20 Syrians are killed in violence, the opposition says, most of them in the central city of Homs. |
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| Oct. 9, 2011 |
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Foreign Minister Walid Moallem says Syria would take 'tough measures' against any country that recognizes the opposition Syrian National Council.
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 Youssef Badawi/EPA Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem |
| Oct. 24, 2011 |
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The Obama administration temporarily withdraws its ambassador to Syria, citing threats against his personal safety following his outspoken criticism of the country's brutal crackdown on pro-democracy protesters. |
 Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty Images Ambassador Robert S. Ford |
| Oct. 26, 2011 |
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An Arab League delegation holds talks with President Bashar Assad, as antigovernment activists report a a paralyzing general strike and 17 more deaths. |
 Muzaffar Salman/Associated Press The massive show of support for President Bashar Assad coincides with the arrival of Arab League delegates. |
| Nov. 2, 2011 |
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Under intense pressure from Arab states, Syria signs a pact to pull its armed forces from the streets, release political prisoners and engage with opposition groups. |
 Khaled Elfiqi/EPA Bahraini Foreign Minister Sheik Khalid bin Ahmed al Khalifa, left, consults with his UAE counterpart Sheik Abdullah bin Zayed al Nahyan. |
| Nov. 12, 2011 |
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In a stinging rebuke of President Bashar Assad, the Arab League votes to suspend Syria if his regime fails to take immediate steps to implement a peace plan designed to end months of unrest in the country. |
 Louai Beshara/AFP/Getty Images Syrians protest outside the Qatari Embassy in Damascus after a statement, read by Qatari Prime Minister Hamad bin Jassem al Thani, said the Arab League had decided to suspend Syria. |
| Nov. 14, 2011 |
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Syrian President Bashar Assad faces heightened economic and political pressures, as Europe imposes a new round of financial sanctions and King Abdullah II of Jordan calls on the embattled autocrat to step down.
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 Ali Jarekji/Reuters A Syrian refugee hits the television set with a shoe at a temporary home in Amman, Jordan, as other refugees watch a news conference held by Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem. |
| Nov. 27, 2011 |
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At an Arab League meeting in Cairo, members vote to impose punishing sanctions on the regime of President Bashar Assad.
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 Khaled Elfiqi/EPA Arab League Secretary General Nabil Alarabi, left, and Qatari Foreign Minister Hamad bin Jasim, center, and Turkey's Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, right. |
| Dec. 2, 2011 |
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The United Nations' top human rights forum condemns Syria for "gross and systematic violations" after an independent panel found evidence suggesting the country's security forces had committed crimes against humanity. |
 Laurent Gillieron/European Pressphoto Agency Syria’s ambassador to U.N. offices in Geneva, Fayssal Hamwi, said the Human Rights Council's report was “not objective.” |
| Dec. 19, 2011 |
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Under mounting international pressure, Syria says that it will admit Arab observers to monitor a regional peace initiative aimed at ending months of bloodshed that is threatening to push the country into civil war. |
 Louai Beshara/AFP/Getty Images Foreign Minister Walid Moallem pledges Syria's full cooperation with Arab observers. |
| Jan. 24, 2012 |
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An Arab League peace plan for Syria appears to be near collapse as six Persian Gulf nations announce their intention to withdraw monitors from the country and urge the United Nations Security Council to take "all needed measures" to pressure Syrian President Bashar Assad to relinquish power. |
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| Jan. 28, 2012 |
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The Arab League says it is suspending its observer mission in Syria amid escalating violence that has left scores dead in recent days. |
 Muzaffar Salman/Associated Press Arab League observers, in front row, attend a Mass in Damascus this month for Syrian victims. The league's roughly 100 monitors will remain in the country. |
| Feb. 4, 2012 |
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A United Nations resolution that Washington and its allies called the best chance to stop Syria from sliding into full-fledged civil war goes down to defeat, dashing hopes for a political settlement as death tolls soar in the strategically situated Arab nation. |
 Jason DeCrow/Associated Pre Security Council representatives Jose Filipe Moraes Cabral, left, of Portugal, and Baso Sangqu of South Africa flank Vitaly Churkin of Russia. |
| Feb. 9, 2012 |
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Opposition activists report that government shelling and attacks kill more than 100 people, most of them in the embattled city of Homs. |
 Associated Press In the city of Idlib, a funeral is held for rebels and a 10-year-old boy. The U.N. and Arab League are considering a joint observer mission to Syria. |
| Feb. 26, 2012 |
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With violence flaring in several regions, Syrians cast ballots for a new constitution hailed as a historic breakthrough by President Bashar Assad and denounced as a farce by his opponents. |
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| March 6, 2012 |
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President Obama rules out a unilateral U.S. military campaign to support the beleaguered rebels in Syria, calling such an operation "much more complicated" than the NATO-led air war launched to help protect civilians during the civil war in Libya. |
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| March 10, 2012 |
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Former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan urges Syrian President Bashar Assad to take "concrete steps" to end the turmoil in his nation, but a reported offensive against rebels in the country's rugged northwest highlights the ferocity of the violence almost a year after the country's uprising began. |
 Syrian Arab News Agency Special envoy to Syria Kofi Annan, left, and Syrian President Bashar Assad meet in Damascus. |
| March 15, 2012 |
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A year into the Syrian uprising, it was not the opposition but the government of President Bashar Assad that made a point of conspicuously marking the anniversary. Raucous pro-Assad rallies in the streets of Damascus and other Syrian cities were the latest triumphal signal from a government widely described from outside as besieged or doomed. |
 Youssef Badawi/European Pressphoto Agency Throngs turn out in support of Assad at Umayyad Square in Damascus, the capital. Pro-Assad rallies were also held in other cities. |
| March 27, 2012 |
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Syria agrees to a peace plan put forward by former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, but fighting rages on between government forces and rebels, officials and activists say. |
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| April 13, 2012 |
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On the second day of a United Nations-backed peace plan to end violence and unrest in Syria's uprising, mass protests return to the streets and in some places are met with gunfire, killing at least eight people, according to activists. |
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| April 16, 2012 |
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As six members of a United Nations monitoring mission begin setting up an operations headquarters and reaching out to both sides of the Syrian conflict Monday, the violence continues to slip toward the level it had been before a cease-fire began. |
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| April 23, 2012 |
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The United States and European Union slap Syria with additional sanctions, as international pressure and a United Nations-backed peace plan fail to quell the violence. Despite the presence of U.N. monitors in the country, President Bashar Assad's forces continue to shell cities and shoot at protesters, killing dozens of people on the day the sanctions are imposed, activists say. |
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| May 27, 2012 |
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The U.N. Security Council condemns Syrian army artillery and tank barrages on a civilian neighborhood where 108 people, most of them women and children, were killed, suggesting in a carefully worded statement that government forces were largely responsible. |
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| June 16, 2012 |
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The United Nations says it is suspending its observer mission in Syria because of escalating violence in the country, signaling a major setback in a U.N.-brokered effort to end violence in the strife-torn nation. |
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| June 22, 2012 |
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Syria shoots down a Turkish military jet. The Turkish foreign minister later says it was shot down in “international airspace” without warning after the aircraft had inadvertently wandered into Syrian skies, contradicting Syria's version that it downed the jet less than a mile from Syria’s coastal province of Latakia. |
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| July 6, 2012 |
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France confirms that Gen. Manaf Tlas, a brigade commander in the Syria's ultra-loyal Republican Guard, has defected.
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| July 14, 2012 |
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United Nations observers visit an alleged massacre site in Treimseh but reach no conclusion about whether the killings were a deliberate slaughter of civilians or the result of clashes between government troops and insurgents. Opposition activists say that as many as 200 people were killed. |
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| July 18, 2012 |
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An audacious bombing aimed at the heart of Syria's feared security services kills three high-ranking officials in Damascus. |
 An amateur photo shows smoke rising over Damascus after Syrian rebels bombed the national security headquarters, killing the defense minister, his deputy and an assistant vice president. |
| Aug. 3, 2012 |
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The U.N. General Assembly condemns the Syrian government's latest attacks on rebellious citizens in a symbolic vote that also criticizes infighting on the Security Council that has thwarted intervention to halt an escalating civil war. |
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| Aug. 6, 2012 |
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Syria's prime minister defects, a stunning blow to the government. |
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| Aug. 26, 2012 |
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Bloodied bodies are found strewn in the streets, in basements and even in the cemetery in the besieged Damascus suburb of Dariya, site of what is believed to be the largest mass killing to date in more than 17 months of fighting in Syria, according to opposition and pro-government accounts. |
 Shaam News Network Covered bodies fill a grave reported to be in Dariya, a suburb of Damascus said to be the site of the largest mass killing in the Syrian conflict. |
| Sept. 26, 2012 |
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Syrian rebels breach checkpoints and concrete barriers to attack the country's military headquarters in Damascus, an assault that left the facility scorched and abandoned, and punctured President Bashar Assad's claim to have his capital under tight control. |
 Louai Beshara/AFP/Getty Images Syrian soldiers gather at the military headquarters in Damascus, where two bombs went off. |
| Oct. 25, 2012 |
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The Syrian military says its forces will observe a temporary holiday cease-fire coinciding with the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha. The truce is violated within hours, with both sides blaming each other. |
 Narciso Contreras/Associated Press A Free Syrian Army fighter watches over an enemy position as the rebel fighters carry out a military operation at the Moaskar front line in Aleppo. |
| Nov. 2, 2012 |
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A United Nations human rights official says the apparent summary execution of at least eight Syrian government soldiers by Syrian rebels documented on amateur video “looks very like a war crime.” |
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| Nov. 9, 2012 |
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Fierce fighting in a border town in northeastern Syrian sends about 8,000 people fleeing into neighboring Turkey over a 24-hour period, one of the largest single-day surges of refugees since the Syrian conflict began, officials say. Turkey is now sheltering more than 120,000 Syrian refugees, well beyond the 100,000 total that Ankara had said would be its limit. |
 Veli Gurgah Anadolu/European Pressphoto Agency Amid violence near the Turkish border, 8,000 people fled the northeastern city of Ras Ayn alone. How far will this go? asked Turkey's prime minister. |
| Nov. 11, 2012 |
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The deeply divided Syrian opposition takes a step toward renewed unity, forming a new coalition designed to build stronger international support for its goal of ousting the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad. After more than a week of sometimes contentious discussions in the Qatari capital, Doha, Syrian dissidents form the Syrian National Coalition for Opposition and Revolutionary Forces. |
 European Pressphoto Agency Syrian rights activist Haytham Maleh, left, congratulates Moaz Khatib in Doha, Qatar, after he was elected to lead the new opposition alliance. |
| Dec. 3, 2012 |
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The United States bluntly warns Syrian President Bashar Assad against using chemical weapons as his forces lose ground to rebel fighters, reflecting U.S. concerns over new intelligence indicating that Syria might be preparing to unleash some of its chemical agent stockpiles. The United Nations says it is pulling nonessential foreign staff from Syria because of deteriorating security.
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.) Narciso Contreras/Associated Press A man gathers belongings from his home in Aleppo, damaged by fighting between Syrian rebels and government forces.
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