Syrian security forces are keeping up a fierce assault on dissent as the embattled regime faces surprising calls for an end to the violence from its strongest ally, Iran. Activists said there were reports of machine-gun fire and explosions as military vehicles stormed an area near the Turkish border on September 8. President Bashar Assad’s crackdown on the 6-month-old uprising has left the regime increasingly isolated.

On September 7, Syrian ally Iran joined the international ch...

Libyan fighters on September 9 clashed with Muammar Qaddafi’s supporters inside Bani Walid, one of the last towns holding out against the country’s new rulers, the former rebels said. Abdullah Kenshil, the former rebels’ chief negotiator, said they were fighting gunmen positioned in houses in the town and the hills that overlooked it. Anti-Qaddafi forces were moving in from the east and south, and the fighters deepest inside Bani Walid were clashing with Qad...

Ousted Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi’s regime sold about 20 per cent of the country’s gold reserves to cover salaries, as he struggled to hold onto power during the final months of the civil war, the new governor of Libya’s central bank said on September 8. Qassim Azzuz also said that none of the bank’s roughly $115 billion in assets “went missing or were stolen” during the six months of fighting. That figure, however, did not include money...

Egyptian activists on September 9 began demolishing a wall built around a building housing the Israeli embassy in Cairo to protect it against demonstrators. They said about a dozen people used hammers to chip away at the mainly concrete wall, which Egyptian authorities erected after daily protests last month sparked by tensions over the death of five Egyptian security personnel in Sinai which Cairo blamed on Israel.

Policemen and soldiers stood by as the activists ham...

Hundreds of protesters took to the streets in Iraq’s capital and other cities on September 9, demanding that the government steps up reforms and provides more electricity and jobs. Inspired by the Arab Spring, Iraqis have been demonstrating on Fridays for months but protests had petered out in recent weeks. The rallies came days after a prominent anti-American Shiite cleric, Moqtada Al-Sadr, called on the government to create 50,000 jobs, give Iraqis a share of the nati...

Deepening a crisis over Israel’s killing last year of nine of their citizens aboard an aid flotilla that tried to reach the Palestinian enclave, the Turks on September 8 vowed to assign warships to escort such convoys in the future. The prospect of a showdown at sea with Turkey, a NATO power and fellow US strategic partner in the region, rattled Israelis already long on edge given Arab political upheaval and Iran’s nuclear programme.

Confrontation did not appear imminent a...

More than five million Saudi students returned to schools on September 10 after a lengthy vacation of two and a half months. Educational departments in Saudi Arab’s 13 regions said they used the break to gear up for the new academic year and are ready to welcome students. In a statement on the occasion, Education Minister Prince Faisal bin Abdullah emphasised the role of teachers in promoting education. “They are the most important element in the education process...