Bashar Assad

On Chuck Hagel's inaugural visit to Israel as U.S. defense secretary, Syria surpassed Iran as the security threat of greatest urgency to the U.S.' closest Mideast ally. That quite unexpectedly gave the new Pentagon chief a temporary respite from the delicate duty of tempering Israeli warnings about attacking Iran to stop it from building a nuclear bomb.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry urged NATO on Tuesday to prepare for the possible use of chemical weapons by Syria on the same day that a senior Israeli military intelligence official said Syrian President Bashar Assad had used such weapons last month in his battle against insurgents.

Canadian authorities claim al-Qaida operatives in Iran directed a failed plot to attack a passenger train. Iran denies it has any links to the two suspects. What falls in between is Iran's complicated history with the terror group that has included outright hostility, alliances of convenience and even overtures by Tehran to assist Washington after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Israel's top military intelligence official said Tuesday that the Syrian government has used chemical weapons repeatedly and he criticized the international community for not taking tougher action ...

Two Syrian rockets struck Lebanon on Tuesday, causing damage and heightening tensions between Lebanese Shiite and Sunni communities over neighboring Syria's civil war, security officials in Beirut said.

A senior Israeli military intelligence official said on Tuesday that Syrian President Bashar Assad used chemical weapons last month in his battle against insurgent groups. It was the first time that Israel has accused the embattled Syrian leader of using his stockpile of nonconventional weapons.

Two men face a bail hearing Tuesday after their arrest on charges of plotting a terrorist attack against a Canadian passenger train with support from al-Qaida elements in Iran, authorities said. The case has raised questions about Shiite-led Iran's murky relationship with the predominantly Sunni Arab terrorist network.

The U.S. and Russia, their ties soured by disputes over stopping Syria's civil war, child adoptions and other issues, could find some common ground for cooperation as authorities investigate the two ethnic Chechens accused of carrying out the Boston Marathon bombings.

Israel's military chief warns 40 years of quiet along the Syrian frontier could be in danger.

Two of FIFA's Twitter accounts have been hacked in the latest wave of cyberattacks claimed by Syrian government sympathizers.