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GENEVA (AP) — At least 2,600 people have died in the six months of unrest that has swept Syria, the U.N.'s top human rights official said Monday, as a panel was named to investigate abuses in the Arab country.

BEIRUT (AP) — Syrian soldiers opened fire in the restive city of Homs on Tuesday and armored vehicles rolled through its streets, activists said, as the U.N. secretary-general urged the world community to take action on Syria.

Syrian security forces searching for an alleged high-profile defector from President Bashar Assad's regime killed two people after storming a northern village Saturday, raising the death toll from the past two days to at least 19, activists said.

The Wall Street Journal has a stunning report on Bashar al-Assad’s use of embassies around the world to perpetuate his reign of terror: Syria is taking its war against President Bashar al-Assad’s political opponents global, using diplomats in Washington, London and elsewhere to track and intimidate expatriates who speak out against the Damascus regime, according to Syrian dissidents and U.S. officials. Syrian embassy staffers are tracking and photographing antiregime protesters and sending reports back home, Syrian activists and U.S. officials say. Syrian diplomats, including the ambassador to the U.S., have fanned out to Arab diaspora communities to brand dissidents “traitors”...

excerpt - Residents and activists said it was quiet until the team left, after which troops opened fire to disperse the protest, killing four people. Three more were killed by gunmen elsewhere in Homs,...

AMMAN (Reuters) - Syrian forces shot dead 20 protesters on Friday despite a pledge by President Bashar al-Assad that a crackdown was over, activists said as thousands marched across Syria, spurred on by U.S. and European calls for him to step down. Most of the violence was in the southern province of Deraa where the uprising against Assad erupted in March, triggering a harsh response in which U.N. investigators say Syrian forces may have committed crimes against humanity.

GENEVA (Reuters) - Syrian forces have fired on peaceful protestors throughout the country, often at short range and without warning, killing at least 1,900 civilians in what may amount to crimes against humanity, U.N. human rights investigators said on Thursday.

U.S. officials say the Obama administration is ready to make an explicit call for Syrian President Bashar Assad to leave power and has notified Arab and European allies that an announcement is imminent.

Syrian gunboats firing heavy machine guns pounded impoverished districts of Latakia on Sunday, killing at least 10 people in a renewed assault on the Mediterranean coastal city, activists said.

BEIRUT (AP) — Syrian soldiers opened fire Friday on tens of thousands of protesters who flooded the streets shouting "We will not kneel!" in a strong show of defiance against President Bashar Assad, whose embattled regime is trying to crush a 5-month-old uprising despite broad international condemnation.

AMMAN (Reuters) - Syrian forces fired live ammunition at protesters coming out of a main mosque after Friday Prayers in the besieged city of Deir al-Zor, witnesses said, as protests against President Bashar al-Assad broke out elsewhere in the country. "Military Intelligence directed their AK-47s at the mosque, hitting the main air-conditioning unit, which caught fire. The whole neighborhood is echoing with the sound of bullets," said one of the witnesses, an engineer in the Ordi district who lives near Harwil Mosque.

BEIRUT (AP) — The Syrian army stormed a northwestern town near Turkey's border on Thursday, a day after authorities declared the military pulled out of the region, activists said.

-excerpt- Since the start of Ramadan, more than 300 people have been killed in cities including Hama and Deir el-Zour, an oil-rich but largely impoverished region known for its well-armed clans and tribes whose ties extend across eastern Syria and into Iraq.

-excerpt- Gen. Ali Habib, the country's defense minister since 2009, was removed from his post because of health problems, the SANA report said, but some analysts said the general was unhappy with the crackdown.

BEIRUT (AP) — Two Syrian rights groups say government forces have killed at least 52 people in the latest phase of their crackdown on dissent and the toll for the day could rise to 69.

BEIRUT (AP) — Tanks took over a main square in the besieged Syrian city of Hama and electricity and telephone phone lines were cut off Wednesday as President Bashar Assad's regime showed no signs of halting the intense military assault against an uprising now in its fifth month, activists said.

-excerpt- Clinton sat down at the State Department with Syrian-Americans who support the push for democracy inspired by uprisings elsewhere in the Arab Middle East this year.

-excerpt- Germany, Britain, France and Portugal have tried unsuccessfully since April to get the U.N.'s most powerful body to condemn Syrian attacks on unarmed civilians.

Syria: Dozens Dead As Assad Troops Launch Major Tank Offensive Bodies littered the streets of Hama on Sunday as the Syrian army launched major tank offensives across the country in a fresh bid to crush the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad. By Adrian Blomfield, 31 Jul 2011. On one of the bloodiest days of retribution since protests against the Syrian leader erupted in March, up to 95 people were killed in Hama alone. Dozens more were feared dead in other restive cities. For nearly a month the security forces had laid siege to Hama, sealing off access roads into the...

-Excerpt- Avaaz said it has identified 1,634 who were killed in the crackdown since March 15. Moreover, 26,000 have been arrested, and many of them were beaten and tortured. Some 12,617 are still in detention, the group said. ... has identified 2,918 Syrians who were arrested or abducted by force by security troops and whose whereabouts are now unknown.