#News: Bombs from #Syrian warplanes hit Lebanese territory near border

AP: Bombs from #Syrian warplanes hit Lebanese territory near borderhttp://aje.me/KL34vQ

Violence in Syria has escalated into what the Red Cross calls a civil war. Activists say at least 27,000 people have died since the uprising began in March last year. The government of Bashar al-Assad, which is increasingly losing territory to rebel fighters, blames "terrorists" and "armed gangs" for the unrest, while the opposition and other nations have accused Assad's forces of crimes against humanity.

Syria about 3 hours ago

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said that the meeting of the "contact group" quartet of Iran, Turkey and Egypt, citing "regional ownership of issues in our region" as the motivating factor.

He said the goal is to help form "a strong Syria" but that it would take more than just one meeting to come to a conclusion.

Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi echoed the need for more time and more meetings, noting that while Iran's position differs from the other parties at the meeting (Iran is the only participant that backs President Bashar al-Assad's government) that common interests unified them.

"I assure that the common grounds between is greater than the differences," said Salehi, who deflected a question on why Iran supported Bahrain's uprising but not Syria's.

Salehi emphasized that the need for a peaceful solution and one that is "satisfactory for everyone".

Al Jazeera's Steve Chao, reporting from Cairo, said that more conversations will be had at the upcoming UN General Assembly in New York in the comings days, and the the focus of today's meeting was not regime change but to "end the bloodshed".

"This quartet says it will meet several times more, but the big question is, where is Saudi Arabia and will Saudi Arabia attend?" asked Chao.

The Saudi foreign minister Prince Saud al-Faisal was scheduled to attend tonight's meeting in Cairo but backed out at the last minute. No official statement has been issued on the reason for the change in plans.

Syria about 4 hours ago

The AP reports:

Authorities say Syrians will not be able to perform the annual Muslim pilgrimage of Hajj this year because of a conflict with Saudi Arabia.
State-run news agency SANA says the Syrian side carried out all required procedures for the pilgrimage season scheduled to begin next month but said Saudi authorities failed to agree on details on time. Saudi authorities could not immediately be reached for comment.
Countries normally agree on numbers of worshippers to travel to Mecca - Islam's holiest site - for the Hajj ahead of time.
Syria-Saudi relations have deteriorated over Syria's civil war. Syria accuses Saudi Arabia of helping rebels seeking to topple President Bashar Assad. The kingdom has been fiercely critical of the Assad regime's crackdown on the uprising.
Millions of Muslims participate in the pilgrimage.

Syria about 4 hours ago

Last month a Syrian rocket landed in Jordan wounding a child, and tonight, the AP reports that bombs from a Syrian warplane have ended up in Lebanese territory. We don't have an exact location yet, and have not confirmed how many bombs or if there have been any injuries or fatalities, but stand by for more details on this.

Syria about 5 hours ago

Going back to school is difficult for many students but in Syria, more than 200,000 of them had no schools to go to on the first day of class on Monday.

The United Nations says over 2,000 Syrian schools have been damaged or destroyed.

Others are being used as shelters by families displaced by the fighting.

Neighbouring countries are doing the best they can to help as Al Jazeera's Jane Arraf reports from Ramtha, Jordan.

Syria about 7 hours ago

Reuters reports:

Saudi Arabia opted to stay away from a meeting of four regional powers on the Syrian crisis on Monday, adding to a sense that the forum is unlikely to advance the quest for peace.
The 'contact group' of Egypt, Iran, Turkey and Saudi Arabia was assembled at Egypt's initiative, but an Egyptian official said the Saudi foreign minister was staying away for health reasons, without saying why no one else was coming in his place.
Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu also said Saudi Arabia, which attended a preparatory meeting last week, would be absent on Monday, but that it would join in future meetings.
There was no immediate Saudi comment.

Syria about 7 hours ago

Many of the people fleeing the violence are making their way to the town of Reef Idlib - and finding shelter in schools, where food and medicine are scarce.

Al Jazeera's Gerald Tan has their story.

Syria about 8 hours ago

It seems too soon to tell.

Paulo Pinheiro, head of the UN investigative panel, told Al Jazeera that the group's role was to "to document, to register these war crimes. What will be done concerning these war crimes is not of our competence," said Pinheiro.

"There are other international bodies in charge of taking the conclusions of our findings."

Syria about 9 hours ago

The AFP reports that Iran is now backing away from reports in its media on what a top Revolutionary Guard commander said on Sunday:

Iran's foreign ministry on Monday denied the Islamic republic had any Revolutionary Guards in Syria, affirming that media reports quoting the head of the Guards saying that had been published out of context.
"The comments citing General (Mohammed Ali) Jafari on the presence of Guards in Syria were selective and incorrect... and they are not in any way valid," ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast told Iran's Arabic-language Al-Alam television.
"Iran does not have any military presence in the region, especially in Syria," he said.
General Jafari, in a very rare news conference in Tehran on Sunday, had said that members of the Guards' elite Quds Force were in Syria and Lebanon as advisors - and asserting that they did not constitute a "military presence."
"A number of Quds Force members are present in Syria and Lebanon. But it does not mean that we have a military presence there. We provide them with counsel and advice, and transfer experience to them," Jafari told the press and television reporters for Iranian and a few foreign news outlets.
"We provide them with our experience, while other countries are not shy of supporting terrorist groups," he said, using the epithet Tehran and Damascus employ to designate Syria's rebels they say are armed by Western and Gulf Arab nations.
"It is our pride, as the supreme leader has said, to defend Syria which is part of (anti-Israel) resistance," Jafari said. Jafari's comments were reported by Iranian news agencies, including the official outlet IRNA, ISNA and the news website of the Revolutionary Guards (Sepah News).
They corresponded to an audio recording of the entire news conference made by AFP.

Syria about 9 hours ago

The AP reports:

Iranian Deputy Health Minister Mohammad Hussein Nikonam on Monday met with Syria's Health Minister Saad Abdul-Salam al-Nayef at the ministry in Damascus.

Speaking to reporters after the talks, Nikonam said Iran was sending 50 ambulances, along with other medical supplies, as a gift to the Syrian government (which Iran supports).

This statement follows yesterday's comment by the head commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guard, Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari, who acknowledged that Iran had high-level "advisers" in Syria and Lebanon, but said that military aid to Assad had not yet been increased.