Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: "A City of Torture"

Vehicles and a house set on fire by regime shelling of the Baba Amr section of Homs in Syria on Monday

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Monday's Syria, Bahrain (and Beyond) Live Coverage: Watching the Protests

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2053 GMT: Activist Zilal translates this video from Homs which shows the now-famous doctor, Mohammad al-Mohammad, speaking about the death of citizen journalist Rami Ahmad Al Sayed:

The doctor says that Ramy Sayed died after he hemorrhaged for 3 hours. He was hit by shrapnel from a rocket in the chest, abdomen, thigh and feet. He was injured while accompanying a family (4 member of the family also died). He also says that Rami was one of the most important cameraman and activist in Baba Amr and that he was killed because he was filming the reality in Baba Amr.

The man who speaks at the end of the video is Rami's brother. He says that Rami asked him to give him his phone to film demonstrations the first times, and after that he said to his brother "Bring me a camera, I want to film."

The video may be disturbing to some viewers.

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Bahrain (and Beyond) Live Coverage: The Violence Escalates

Protesters throw Molotov cocktails at security forces in Aldair in Bahrain on Saturday

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1244 GMT: At least 15 people have been killed and 21 wounded when a bomber wearing a suicide vest blew himself up near the entrance to the Iraqi Police Academy in the east of Baghdad.

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Deadly attacks have also been reported in and around the city of Baquba, to the north of Baghdad. Four police informants were killed by suspected Al-Qaeda gunmen.

Gunmen also attacked a checkpoint in Abu Khamis, north of Baquba, killing one policeman and two members of the Sahwa (Awakening) militia.

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US and the World: The Future is Bright, The Future is Drone Attacks (Finn)

The killing of terrorism suspects and insurgents by armed drones, controlled by pilots sitting in bases thousands of miles away in the western United States, has prompted criticism that the technology makes war too antiseptic. Questions also have been raised about the legality of drone strikes when employed in places such as Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia, which are not at war with the United States. This debate will only intensify as technological advances enable what experts call lethal autonomy.

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Yemen Analysis: The Latest Deaths and the Mistakes of US Policy (Johnsen)

A man is shot by a sniper at the "Kentucky Roundabout" in the Yemeni capital Sana'a

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The news media, as should be expected, largely ignored Yemen when there were bloodier crises to cover in Libya and Syria and as a result so did the merry-go round experts in [Washington] DC and Europe.

But the US did not.

Now I completely disagree with the way the US has approached the crisis in Yemen since the uprising started in February, and I think my record is pretty clear on that, but I can't say it has ignored Yemen.

In fact, only a couple of weeks ago, John Brennan, who has emerged as the US point man on Yemen - which should tell you something about US priorities in Yemen, given that he is a counterterrorism adviser --- explained that Yemen's cooperation with the US was better than ever since Saleh left the country.

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Syria, Libya (and Beyond) LiveBlog: A Death in Bahrain

2112 GMT: James is taking a break, but he wanted to note that we've receieved dozens of protest videos from Syria, some of which we will put into a separate feature.

2106 GMT: This video claims to show protesters in the Alqarya area of Sitra, Bahrain, tonight, before the protesters are attacked by police:

Dissidents prepare to protest in Babar, Bahrain:

2051 GMT: Syrian expatriates have founded a 140 member transitional council in Turkey. The goal of the national council is to establish a vision for a post-Assad Syria, and to continue to organize peaceful pro-democracy protests:

At the meeting, 70 names were read out from a list of 140, as at least some of the rest cannot be named, possibly because they are inside Syria, says the BBC's Jonathan Head in Istanbul.

Others are in exile.

The opposition groups seem to have finally agreed to what is effectively an embryonic Syrian national assembly, says our correspondent.

For the first time, it has the full backing of all opposition groups inside and outside the country, and will now represent the opposition, he (opposition spokesman) adds.

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Syria, Yemen (and Beyond) LiveBlog: Postures of "National Dialogue"

1155 GMT: Thanks to James Miller for stepping in for a bit.

A couple of quotes, from those opposition figures who did attend, to flesh out the sketch of Syria's "national dialogue" talks that we offered in our first entry (see 0310 GMT)....

Mohammad Habash, an independent MP, said, "The way out is by putting an end to the security stateand to work for a civil and democratic country where there is political pluralism and media freedom and to end the one-party rule. Confronting protests with bullets is not acceptable at all."

And dissident writer Tayyeb Tizini asserted, "The bullets are still being fired in Homs and Hama. I would have hoped that that would have stopped before the meeting. That's what's necessary."

1130 GMT: Yemen's President Ali Abdullah Saleh has met with US envoy John Brennan in Saudi Arabia. Yemeni State Television has released this video, where Saleh can be seen with his hands still bandaged. According to the State Department, Brennan pushed Saleh to sign the GCC transition plan.

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Yemen Snapshot: US and European Union Spin in Futility --- What to Do? What to Do? (DeYoung)

Armed Men Trap Ambassadors in UAE Embassy, 22 May 2011As Yemen's President Saleh repeatedly backs away from a deal for transition of power and armed clashes escalate on the streets of the capital Sanaa and other cities, the US and the European Union seem to be spinning helplessly, entangled in their alliance with Saleh in the War on Terror.

Karen DeYoung reports for The Washington Post:

The Obama administration and its Arab and European allies are reassessing their military and economic support for Yemen in a desperate search for ways to force President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s resignation before civil war erupts.

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Bin Laden Follow-Up: US-Pakistan Tension Escalates (Myers/Perlez)

Obama Envoy Grossman & Pakistan PM GilaniTensions between the American and Pakistani governments intensified sharply on Tuesday as senior Obama administration officials demanded answers to how Osama bin Laden managed to hide in Pakistan, and the Pakistani government issued a defiant statement calling the raid that killed the Al Qaeda leader “an unauthorized unilateral action.”

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Bin Laden Follow-Up: Obama Administration Frets About Withdrawal from Afghanistan & Tensions with Pakistan (But, Hey, We Sure Showed Iran)

UPDATE 0730 GMT: The Obama Administration's top journalist accomplices this morning? Reveal yourself, the editors and reporter Joshua Partlow of The Washington Post....

The headline blares, "Afghans Worry Bin Laden’s Death Could Weaken U.S. Resolve", and Partlow writes, "One persistent worry repeated here was that U.S. support for the war could erode at an accelerated pace now that America’s most wanted man is dead. With that decade-long goal achieved, Afghan officials said, the case for troop withdrawal becomes that much more convincing for Americans."

And how many Afghans does Partlow quote in what is effectively a PR piece for a continued US military presence?

Two. A "senior Afghan official" says, "Americans will forget Afghanistan again.” And Hanif Atmar, Afghanistan’s former interior minister, declares, “A warning to the United States and the rest of our NATO allies. This should not be seen as mission accomplished.”

Indeed, so intent is The Post on pushing this case that it includes, without apparent recognition, a quote that says something completely different:

President Hamid Karzai, who praised American troops for killing bin Laden, used the opportunity to reiterate his message that the locus of terrorism remains beyond Afghan borders. “For years we have said that the fight against terrorism is not in Afghan villages and houses. Stop bombarding Afghan villages and searching Afghan people.”

For some reason, I think that statement sends a far different message to the US military than "Please. Stay."

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Yemen Portrait: The Protests, the President, and His Supporters in Washington (Filkins)

A Western diplomat in Yemen said, “O.K., fine, Saleh goes. Then what do you do? There is no institutional capacity—in the bureaucracy, in the military, or in any other institutions in this society—to really step in and pick up the pieces and manage a transition.” A failed state in Yemen, coupled with an already anarchic situation in Somalia, could provide Islamist militants with hundreds of miles of unguarded coastline, disrupting the shipping lanes that run from the Suez Canal to the Indian Ocean.

The senior Administration official put it bluntly: “Our goal is to help prevent a coup or a usurpation of power by Muslim Brotherhood types or by Al Qaeda.”

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