Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: At Least 44 Dead in Airstrike on Ma'arat al-Numan

2250 GMT: Syria. We have to end today's coverage, and we will continue it tomorrow, but it has been a terrible day - in Lebanon, but even more so in Syria.

Still, if two words could summarize the spirit of the Syrian opposition, they might be "brave defiance." Today, despite the shells and gunshots, falling bombs, tanks, and massacres, people still protested.

This video was taken today in Douma, a major suburb of Damascus - the protesters brought the remnants of a cluster bomb to the streets:

But just a few miles away, in the Damascus suburb of Saqba, civilians try to dig their friends and family out of the rubble as shells land and buildings collapse:

Bravery, defiance, and death...

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Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: Car Bomb Outside Damascus Police Station

Scene of last night's car bomb in Damascus

Syria Opinion: Opposition Is Letting Down Residents in the East
Sunday's Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: On a "Slow" Saturday, 105 Die

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2055 GMT: Egypt. President Mohammed Morsi has said he will pardon all those arrested --- except persons charged with murder --- from the first day of the uprising against the Mubarak regime to June 2012, when Morsi took office.

Any decree could lead to the release of several thousand people.

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Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: Anticipating A Friday of Protests and Clashes

1954 GMT: Bahrain. Earlier we noted that there were clashes between police and protesters as crowds, gathered to mourn the loss of a prisoner of conscience who dies this week fro sickle cell anemia, were disrupted by teargas. It seems that some of the youth reportedly threw molotov cocktails, and injuries are reported. The Ministry of Interior released this statement, along with a phone number to call:

The General Director of Northern Police announced that a group of lawbreakers targeted on-duty policemen on Friday, while trying to secure Shaikh Khalifa bin Salman road near Buquwa. They attacked the police with Molotov Cocktails. The car gutted and one policeman was injured.

1841 GMT: Turkey/Syria. More escalation near the border:

#BREAKING: Turkish army shells al-Qaysaryia town 13km south of Tel Abyad town - Activists #Syria #Assad #Turkey #Ankara

— Zaid Benjamin (@zaidbenjamin) October 5, 2012

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Tunisia Feature: The Truth About the "Salafi Fanatics" (Marks)

Salafists demonstrate outside the El-Fath mosque in Tunis, 17 September 2012 (Photo: Salah Habibi/AFP)

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Local journalists covering previous instances of Salafi-oriented unrest --- from the October 2011 demonstrations against the film Persepolis to this June's riots at an art exhibit in Tunis's upscale La Marsa district -- have tended to narrate events from afar without directly interviewing Salafis. Such slipshod coverage has tended to leave readers with a broad-brush portrait of Tunisian Salafism --- one that obscures important details concerning the movement's composition and complexity. Far from being a monolithic group of highly organized extremists, Tunisia's Salafis are in fact a loose collection of religiously right-wing individuals whose identities and motivations require far closer scrutiny.

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Tunisia Video Interview: Ennadha Party Leader Rachid Ghannouchi "Violence is Not the Answer" (Al Jazeera English)

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Al Jazeera English interviews Rachid Ghannouchi, leader of the Ennadha Party, the largest faction in the Assembly. He speaks about the recent protests and violence over a US film denigrating the Prophet Mohammad, the role of sharia law, and politics and free expression in Tunisia --- a take-away quote:

This event can give service only to anti-Islam....Whoever plans this crime with the intention or without intention, they destroy the dialogue between Islam and the West, they help Islamophobia in the world.

Violence is not the solution it is part of the problem,. We have many problems between Muslims and some Western countries, but violence is not the solution. It can increase the problems and difficulties and push things towards a war between nations and religions. It is not [part of] Islamic politics.

Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: The Grind of the Conflict

2148 GMT: Syria. The daily death toll has reached at least 150, according to the Local Coordination Committees:

72 of them were in Damascus and suburbs including 30 in Hajar Aswad, 20 were slaughtered in Jobar and 3 were field executed in Qadam. 32 martyrs in Aleppo most of them are in Manbej, 25 in Hama most of them are in Hwaija village and Masha' Arba'een neighborhood, 10 martyrs in Deir Ezzor most of them in Almohasan, 5 in Daraa, 3 in Idlib, 2 in Latakia and a martyr in Homs.

See our note on the casualty figures put forward by the Local Coordination Committees).

September is on track to be one of the bloodiest months in the recent history of the Middle East. August in Syria was the bloodiest of the last 10 years, even bloodier than any single month of conflict in Iraq or Afghanistan, even when using conservative numbers.

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Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: Dying Amid the Diversion of the Mohammad Film

Shelling of al-Qusayr in Homs Province in Syria this morning

See also Syria Feature: The Insurgents Test Self-Government
Monday's Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: Regime "Fully Purges Aleppo District From Terrorists"....Again

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2030 GMT: Syria. British Foreign Secretary William Hague has told a Parliamentary committee that any intervention can only take place with Washington's participation.

While Hague said military action could not be ruled out, he said he saw “major disadvantages” and continued, "It would require intervention on a vastly greater scale than was the case in Libya, with no prospect at the moment of agreement at the U.N. Security Council, and would require the full involvement of the United States."

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Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: Will the Clashes Around the US Embassies Continue Today?

Friday's peaceful protest in Binnish in northwest Syria against the US-produced film "The Innocence of Muslims"

See also MENA Audio Feature: Beginner's Guide to the Mohammad Film and the Violence --- Scott Lucas with the BBC
Friday's Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: Re-Focusing on the Conflict

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2105 GMT: Syria. The Local Coordination Committees have updated today's death toll to 144, including 65 in Damascus and its suburbs, 23 in Aleppo Province, 22 in Idlib Province, and 15 in Deir Ez Zor Province.

1745 GMT: Syria. The Local Coordination Committees report that 127 people have been killed by security forces today, including 57 in Damascus and its suburbs, 20 in Aleppo Province --- among them, an entire family in Daret Azzah --- and 20 in Idlib Province.

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MENA Audio Feature: Beginner's Guide to the Mohammad Film and the Violence --- Scott Lucas with the BBC

Demonstrators in Sudan set fire to the German Embassy on Friday

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I spoke with BBC WM yesterday afternoon about the US-produced film, "The Innocence of Muslims", that contributed to demonstrations and violence across North Africa and the Middle East. 

Looking at how the film emerged from badly-made trailer on the Internet to centre of controversy, I spoke with Paul Franks about deeper causes for the protests and clashes. Take-away line? While the confrontations are fuelled by anger at US foreign policy and actions and the planning of radical groups, the film was "throwing a cultural firebomb and standing back to watch the flames spread".

The item starts at the 1:10:10 mark.

Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: More Deaths, More than 200,000 Refugees

2000 GMT: Syria. The violence is usually the headline. The story is usually about the regime dropping bombs, or battles between the military and the insurgents, or the worsening humanitarian crisis, or the international response to the death. But an activist reminds us that, though they've been largely pushed to the shadows because of all the violence, there are still protests, even in the center of Damascus:

Despite all the battles! RT @lccsy: مظاهرة مسائية في كفرسوسة بدمشقEvening Demonstration in Kafar Souseh, #Damascus... fb.me/1G9jAHIKh

— zain (@ZainSyr) August 25, 2012

...Even though the most likely form of protest is a protest at a funeral, like this one in Idlib province:

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