Syria Feature: Latest on Fighting Among Free Syrian Army, Kurdish Militias, and Regime Forces

Footage of captured regime soldiers after insurgents took Ras al-Ain

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The lack of manpower in the Syrian army due to defections and desertions has led to the Free Syrian army expanding into areas with Kurdish populations, despite an agreement between the FSA and the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) to stay out of each other’s zones of control. This led to tensions and fighting between the FSA and the PYD in Aleppo Province, both in cities and the countryside, as well as friction between the Kurdish National Council (KNC) and the PYD.

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Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: What Happened to the Syrian National Initiative for a New Opposition?

Former MP Jawad Fairouz, one of 31 people whose citizenship was revoked by the Bahraini regime (see 0635 and 1125 GMT), speaks with the BBC

See also Syria Feature: Latest on Fighting Among Free Syrian Army, Kurdish Militias, and Regime Forces
Yemen Feature: How A Country Was Lost in Obama's "War Laboratory"
Syria Audio Special: Regime's Leadership Defiant as Opposition's Disintegrates --- James Miller and Scott Lucas with Monocle 24
Friday's Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: Opposition Still Seeking Leadership

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1530 GMT: Turkey. Six leading Kurdish politicians have joined hundreds of jailed militants and activists in a hunger strike, now in its 60th day.

About 700 Kurdish prisoners in dozens of facilities are calling for the leader of the PKK insurgency, Abdullah Ocalan, who is imprisoned on an island south of Istanbul, to have access to lawyers after 15 months of no contact.

Osman Baydemir, mayor of Diyarbakir in predominantly Kurdish southeastern Turkey, said in a statement on Saturday that he had stopped eating. Five Kurdish members of the Turkish Parliament --- Sirri Sureyya Onder, co-chair of the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), Gultan Kisanak, Aysel Tugluk, Adil Kurt, Sabahat Tuncer --- were also on hunger strike, he said.

The hunger strikers are consuming sugared water and vitamins that will prolong their lives and the protest.

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