Iranian presidential candidates announced; Rafsanjani disqualified

TEHRAN — A former president supported by Iran’s moderates and considered a founding member of the Islamic republic was disqualified Tuesday from running in the coming election, generating surprise and tension. Read full article >>

Young Lebanese fighters leaving Syria for battle closer to home

TRIPOLI, Lebanon — While the Syrian opposition urges more men to assist embattled rebels in the fight for the key town of Qusair, dozens of young Lebanese fighters are leaving Syria to join a battle closer to home Read full article >>

Kerry promises wider U.S. support for Syrian rebels if peace talks remain elusive

AMMAN, Jordan — The United States and its partners will widen support for the Syrian rebels, potentially by sending more weapons or taking other measures short of sending American forces, if diplomacy fails to end a civil war that has killed “upwards of 100,000” people, Secretary of State John F. Kerry said Wednesday. Read full article >>

An audacious plan at the Western Wall

JERUSALEM — In a city where three major faiths guard their holy places with quarrelsome zeal and moving a single stone can have deep religious and geopolitical implications, a new proposal to double the area for Jewish prayer along the iconic Western Wall represents dramatic change for a place that does not easily embrace it. Read full article >>

Iran presidential campaign begins without two big names

TEHRAN — Iran’s conservatives, who on Tuesday saw the two main moderate threats to their dominance barred from running in next month’s presidential election, face a new challenge: persuading shocked and skeptical Iranians to turn out to vote. Read full article >>

Border violence prevents Syrian refugees from reaching Jordan

AMMAN, Jordan — An upswing in violence across southern Syria has prevented thousands of refugees from crossing into Jordan, according to U.N. officials, who are warning of an impending humanitarian crisis along the Jordanian-Syrian border. Read full article >>

Iranian soldiers fighting for Assad in Syria, says State Department official

MUSCAT, Oman — Iran has sent soldiers to Syria to fight alongside forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad and those of the Lebanon-based Hezbollah militia, a senior State Department official said Tuesday. Read full article >>

Israel warns Syria to halt attacks after exchange of fire in the Golan Heights

JERUSALEM —In blunt language marking a turn away from diplomatic caution, Israel warned the Syrian government Tuesday that it “would suffer the consequences” if it continued to press attacks, hours after Syrian and Israeli troops exchanged fire along the cease-fire line in the occupied Golan Heights. Read full article >>

In Iran, disputes over foreign policy divide presidential candidates

TEHRAN — Relief for Iran’s ailing economy will be the top priority of Iranians on June 14, when they vote to replace Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president. Foreign policy, however, will take on extra significance in the election, as Iran struggles to undo the economic and diplomatic isolation of the past four years. Read full article >>

Hezbollah members killed in Syria fighting

AARSAL, Lebanon — Portraits of Hezbollah fighters slain in the weekend battle for the Syrian city of Qusair dotted the roads of villages in northern Lebanon on Monday, evidence of the militant group’s increasing entanglement in the Syrian civil war. Read full article >>

Syrian army, fighting alongside Hezbollah guerrillas, launch assault on rebel stronghold

Syrian government forces, backed by militants from the Lebanese group Hezbollah, are reported to have made significant advances into the rebel stronghold of Qusair near the Lebanese border.The army launched a sustained assault on the small but strategic town Sunday morning, bombarding it with airstrikes and shelling. Syrian state television said 70 “terrorists” were killed, while activists sa

In Iran, opponents use age to attack Rafsanjani campaign

TEHRAN — In a political order where elderly men have long been considered the most fit leaders, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani’s age — 78 — is the latest reason his detractors say he should not be allowed to run for president of Iran. Read full article >>

In interview, Syria’s Assad says he will not step down, voices skepticism on peace talks

BEIRUT — In a rare interview published Saturday, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad expressed doubt about the likely success of planned peace talks between his government and opposition forces and said he has no intention of stepping down. Read full article >>

U.N. chief, in Russia, talks up Syria peace conference

MOSCOW — As Russian warships from the Pacific, Black Sea, Northern and Baltic fleets steamed toward a rendezvous in the eastern Mediterranean, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon met with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday to underscore his support for a peace conference on Syria proposed by Moscow and Washington earlier this month. Read full article >>

Sectarianism in Iraq stoked by Syrian war

BAGHDAD — A recent tide of sectarian tensions that erupted into the worst violence seen in Iraq in five years is testing the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, whose ability to contain the crisis could hinge on a conflict raging beyond his control in Syria. Read full article >>

Syrian rebels demand weapons before talks

BEIRUT —The Syrian opposition is demanding access to arms before planned peace talks next month, amid a growing consensus that it may take a shift in the balance of power on the battlefield before any meaningful negotiations can take place. Read full article >>

Turkey looks for international aid, and countries to host refugees, in Syrian crisis

YAYLADAGI, Turkey — Facing one of the world’s largest refugee crises in decades, Turkish officials are urgently appealing for international financial assistance and calling on wealthy nations, particularly the United States and the countries of Europe, to start accepting large numbers of Syrian refugees. Read full article >>

Palestinians curb Israeli reporters’ access to West Bank

RAMALLAH, West Bank — Palestinians gathered here Wednesday to commemorate the day they call al-Naqba, or the catastrophe, when the state of Israel was born in 1948.They heard their leaders repeat an old promise that someday, somehow, the scattered people would return. They posed for pictures, too, to prove that the Palestinians are still here, that they will not be forgotten. Read full artic

Video purporting to show Syrian rebel atrocity highlights challenges facing West on aid

BEIRUT — A graphic video allegedly showing a Syrian rebel cutting open a pro-government fighter’s chest and biting into one of his internal organs sparked outrage Tuesday, reviving concerns about the makeup of opposition forces even as the United States warned that it is ready to bolster its support for them. Read full article >>

Turkey’s Erdogan to air policy differences with Obama

ANKARA, Turkey — Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a critical U.S. ally in the Muslim world, is struggling with the crisis in Syria, which has strained his country’s fast-growing economy, swamped it with hundreds of thousands of refugees and created unusually public friction with Washington. Read full article >>

Turkey says bombing suspects are linked to Syria

BEIRUT — Turkey said on Sunday that it would step up its efforts to persuade the international community to do more to end the war in Syria, after investigators said they had found evidence that the regime in Damascus was behind the car bombing in a Turkish border town that killed 46 people. Read full article >>

Bombing kills at least 40 in Turkish border town

BEIRUT — Turkish officials accused Syria of carrying out a double car bombing on Saturday that killed at least 40 people in the Turkish border town of Reyhanli, just days before a visit to Washington by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan that is expected to focus on the crisis in Syria. Read full article >>

Last-minute entries reshape Iran’s presidential field

TEHRAN — Two of Iran’s most controversial figures announced Saturday that they are seeking to be candidates to replace Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as Iran’s president.The emergence of two-term former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Ahmadinejad’s top aide, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, dramatically changed the landscape of an election that until recently most observers thought would be fought be

Russian foreign minister denies new weapons sales to Syria

MOSCOW — Russia’s foreign minister denied Friday that Moscow intends to sign any new contracts to sell surface-to-air missiles to Syria, although he said old contracts are being honored.“Russia does not plan to sell,” Sergei Lavrov said at a news conference in Warsaw, according to the Interfax news agency. “Russia has sold long ago and delivered hardware, which are air defense systems, under

Former Iranian president Rafsanjani ponders run in upcoming election

TEHRAN — Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, one of Iran’s most enduring political figures, has reentered the spotlight just over a month before Iranians vote in a presidential election. At 78, Rafsanjani, who was the Islamic Republic’s president from 1989 until 1997, hinted this week that he is considering one more run for the country’s top elected post, a prospect that has at once energized and u

Israel holds grand mufti for questioning on al-Aqsa mosque disturbance

JERUSALEM — Israeli police took the top Muslim caretaker of Jerusalem’s Islamic holy places from his home early Wednesday and held him for questioning about a violent disturbance at the al-Aqsa mosque, a move that increased tensions with Palestinians at a time when the United States is trying to revive peace talks. Read full article >>

Israel, once energy-dependent, is new big gas producer

NETANYA, Israel — The huge reservoirs of natural gas discovered off the coast of Israel now flowing toward shore have the potential to transform the ­energy-challenged country into a lean, green manufacturing machine — capable of supplying cheap, clean energy to its people, factories and vehicles for a generation. Read full article >>

Four U.N. observers detained in Golan Heights

BEIRUT —Syrian rebels kidnapped four United Nations peacekeepers Tuesday along the fraught cease-fire line between Israel and Syria in the Golan Heights, in a replay of a similar incident in March. The U.N. peacekeeping department in New York said four Philippine peacekeepers serving in the U.N. Disengagement Observer Force were captured by “an unidentified armed group” while patrolling near

Would-be Iranian presidents seek a place on the ballot

TEHRAN — Not just anyone is allowed to become president of Iran.But just about anyone can sign up to be considered, and the dozens of candidates who lined up to do so in Tehran on Tuesday offered a window into the uncertainty and confusion surrounding an election that is just six weeks away. Read full article >>

Israel tries to lower tensions with Syria after reports of airstrikes

JERUSALEM — Two small rockets from Syria were lobbed across the boundary into the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights on Monday, and the Israeli military quickly played down the incident as “accidental spillover” from ­Syria’s raging civil war. Read full article >>