to its own defense. Israeli intelligence says forces have even been stripped from the Golan front to help defend the capital. The rebel Free Syrian Army has declared it Operation Damascus Volcano; and the Muslim Brotherhood, the biggest and most organized opposition group, says the battle now being joined will be decisive.
Iraq has said it will pursue legal action against the Syrian ambassador to Baghdad, Nawaf Fares, who defected last week. He told a British newspaper that after the American invasion of Iraq in 2003, he'd helped Syria send al-Qaeda jihadi units to Iraq. In response, the Iraqi government has said that Mr Fares' comments
amounted to
a confession of
complicity
for attacks inside Iraq.
Police in Chile have arrested two former military officials on charges of torturing to death the father of the former President Michelle Bachelet. Vanessa Buschschluter reports.
A judge charged Ramon Caceres and Edgar Ceballos were being responsible for the torture that caused the death of Gen Bachelet. The general was loyal to President Salvador Allende, who was
deposed
in a military coup in 1973. Soon after the coup, Gen Bachelet was taken to a military academy, where he was questioned and tortured by members of the armed force he had previously led. His daughter Michelle, who became Chile's first female president in 2006, was also detained and tortured. The two officers have not yet commented on the charges.