The Assad regime's use of chemical weapons is announced as a "red line"—the favored metaphor of Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu, now alarmingly accepted by the US media, at least.  Israel yesterday said the line has been crossed. Brigadier-General Itai Brun, head of IDF military intelligence, told an Institute for National Security Studies conference in Tel Aviv: "There's a huge arsenal of chemical weapons in Syria. Our assessment is that the [Assad] regime has used and is using chemical weapons." Brun cited photographs of victims that showed them foaming at the mouth and with contracted pupils. "To the best of our understanding, there was use of lethal chemical weapons. Which chemical weapons? Probably sarin." And John Kerry, speaking at a NATO meeting in Brussels, called on the alliance to make preparations to respond in the event of chemical weapons threatening a member (meaning Turkey). (The Guardian, April 23)

As the Friends of Syria summit opened in Istanbul April 20, US Secretary of State John Kerry announced plans to provide $100 million in new "non-lethal" aid to the Syrian opposition—and the Syrian National Coalition demanded actual weapons, threatening to break off talks with the international group if they are not forthcoming.  The Coalition also called for drone strikes on the Syrian army's missile sites, and the imposition of no-fly zones. The "non-lethal" package is to include body armor, night-vision goggles, vehicles and other aid with military applications. Kerry nonetheless said the aid "underscores the United States' firm support for a political solution to the crisis in Syria and for the opposition's advancement of an inclusive, tolerant vision for a post-Assad Syria." The new package brings total US aid to the Syrian opposition to $250 million since the fighting began.

In some very inspiring news, opposition activists from Syrian President Bashar Assad's Alawite sect publicly broke ranks with the regime at a meeting in Cairo March 31, and urged their fellow Alawites in the army to rebel, Reuters reports. "We call on our brothers in the Syrian army, specifically members of our sect, not to take up arms against their people and to refuse to join the army," the delegates said in a statement. "[T]he Alawite sect was and is being held hostage by the regime," stated the communique, which was read out by Alawite activist Tawfiq Dunia. "One of the goals of the Syrian revolution is to restore the national identity and free the Alawite sect from the family of the ruling regime."

Approximately 250 Yemeni demonstrators gathered April 1 in front of the US Embassy in Sanna to demand the release of Yemeni detainees held at Guantánamo Bay. According to media sources, 90 out the 166 remaining Guantánamo detainees are Yemeni, and several have been detained for more than a decade. Protesters reportedly decried conditions at the prison, citing reports of inhumane treatment, water deprivation and forced feeding. Protesters also held up photos of their detained relatives and denounced treatment allegedly leading to several suicides, including that of Salah Al-Salami, who committed suicide while in detention in 2006. The protest prompted dispatch of the Yemeni military. Among the Yemeni detainees is Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, who is accused of bombing the USS Cole while it was in port in Yemen in October 2000.

Two Bahraini human rights activists have intensified their hunger strike and are refusing fluids, according to a report released March 25 by the Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR). According to the report Zainab al-Khawaja and her father, prominent human rights activist Abdulhadi al-Khawaja began refusing fluids in response to being denied visits from their families. Earlier this month, the Bahrain court of appeals overturned the acquittal of Zainab al-Khawaja, who has been accused of insulting a government employee, and sentenced her to three months of imprisonment. She began her hunger strike on March 18. Abdulhadi al-Khawaja was sentenced to life in prison for his role anti-government protests by a military tribunal in June 2011. The Bahraini government has denied the report.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon announced on March 21 that the UN will initiate a probe into the possible use of chemical weapons in Syria. The Syrian government requested the probe earlier this week after anti-government forces carried out an attack on a village near Aleppo. Ban declared that the investigation will involve other international bodies such as the World Health Organization and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. In his remarks, Ban stated that any use of chemical weapons would be a serious crime and that the Syrian government has the primary responsibility of ensuring the security of chemical weapons. Ban said that the investigation would start as soon as possible.

The National Coalition of Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces on March 1 accused government troops of executing 72 people and burning their bodies in a village near the northern city of Aleppo. The Aleppo Media Centre, run by a network of anti-regime activists, said children, women and elderly people were among the victims, who it said were targeted on suspicion of collaborating with opposition fighters. (Al-Shofra, US CentCom, March 1) Controversy still surrounds a Jan. 15 massacre at the village of Haswiya, on the edge of the central city of Homs, where some 100 were killed, a BBC reporter seeing charred bodies still lying inside one of the houses. Syrian security forces who escorted the BBC team to the site of the killings insisted they were the work of the Nusra Front rebels. Opposition activists say the pro-regime Shabiha militiawas to blame. (BBC News, March 11) 

A criminal court in Riyadh on March 9 sentenced two Saudi Arabian human rights activists to at least 10 years in prison. The activists were found guilty earlier that day of sedition, providing foreign media with inaccurate information, founding and operating an unlicensed human rights organization and other criminal offenses. Mohammed al-Qahtani and Abdullah al-Hamid founded the Saudi Civil and Political Rights Association, a group that documented human rights abuses, and the group has been ordered to disband. Al-Qahtani was sentenced to 10 years in prison and received a 10-year travel ban. Al-Hamid was sentenced to five years in prison, ordered to serve six years of a sentence from which he he had previously been pardoned, and received a five-year travel ban. The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) has demanded the immediate release of the activists. Both men will remain in detention until a ruling on their appeal next month.