iStockPhoto/Thinkstock(BAGHDAD) -- Deadly attacks driven by sectarian tensions slowed somewhat in Iraq on Tuesday, although officials there say that bombings still took the lives of 20 people while injuring at least 100 others.

The death toll during six days of renewed sectarian violence is now close to 270 with nearly 100 fatalities reported on Monday, half of them in Baghdad's Shiite neighborhoods.

Most of Tuesday's attacks occurred north of the capital as militants used car bombs and explosive-laden vests to strike at Iraqi civilians and security forces.

Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has blamed Sunni lawmakers and tribesmen for stirring up the latest tensions, while Sunnis maintain that it's al-Maliki's fault for marginalizing them.

In another sign of the deteriorating situation, the Iraqi parliament postponed an emergency session on Tuesday to address the violence when the prime minister's supporters refused to attend the meeting.

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Kaveh Kazemi/Getty Images(NEW YORK) -- Human Rights Watch on Tuesday decried the latest surge of "moral crimes" in Afghanistan, in which women and girls are actually punished for offenses perpetrated against them by men.

The watchdog group pointed to the latest figures by Afghanistan’s Interior Ministry that found 600 females imprisoned for "moral crimes" as of May 2013 -- a jump of 200 incarcerations since October 2011.

Brad Adams, Asia director of Human Rights Watch, said in a statement that 12 years after the Taliban was driven from power, "women are still imprisoned for being victims of forced marriage, domestic violence and rape.  The Afghan government needs to get tough on abusers of women, and stop blaming women who are crime victims."

In virtually all cases of girls and half involving women, the "moral crimes" constituted running away from home in order to flee from forced marriages or abusive relationships.

Sex outside of marriage is also grounds for imprisonment of females, punishable by up to 15 years in jail.  Even a woman who is raped or forced into prostitution can be found guilty by Afghan courts on the charge of sex outside of marriage.

Women and girls accused of "moral crimes" can also be subject to "virginity tests" to determine if they engaged in recent sexual intercourse.

Among other things, Human Rights Watch is calling on President Hamid Karzai to declare that running away is not a crime, which would overturn the judgment of the Afghan Supreme Court that has deemed it should be prosecuted as such.

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WOLFGANG KUMM/AFP/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) -- The United States has new evidence that Iran and Hezbollah have direct involvement with the Syrian regime, a senior State Department official told reporters traveling with Secretary of State John Kerry in Oman.

The official said that, according to the Free Syrian Army, Hezbollah and Iranian fighters have been helping the Syrian regime of President Bashar Assad in Qusayr, near the opposition stronghold city of Homs.

“It is the most visible effort we have seen of Hezbollah to engage directly in the fighting in Syria as a foreign force.  We understand there are also Iranians up there,” the official said. “This is an important thing to note — the direct implication of foreigners fighting on Syrian soil now for the regime.”

The official said there are concerns that if the Syrian forces capture Qusayr they will slaughter the civilian population there, which numbers in the thousands. The opposition warns it could be a repeat of the massacres seen in Banias earlier this month, which is roughly 30 minutes away.

However, the official could not verify exactly what the Iranians and Hezbollah are doing — whether they are fighting alongside the regime or just advising the soldiers.

"I don’t think they’re arming because I’ve not heard that, but I think they could be doing a little of both advising and fighting,” the official said. “We know that Iran and Hezbollah cooperate in a number of countries, not just in Syria.  And so it is not a surprise that Iran would be there with Hezbollah on the ground.  We do have consistent reports of Hezbollah fighters on the ground.”

Meanwhile in Washington, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved the bipartisan Syria Transition Support Act, which approves lethal aid and training to vetted Syrian rebels, sanctions weapons and oil sales to the Assad regime, and provides further humanitarian assistance for planning for a post-Assad Syria. All but three senators on the committee are voting for the bill, which will now go to the full Senate for a vote.

The legislation allows for the U.S. to provide rebels with arms and military training only after they have gone through a vetting process by the U.S. government and are found to meet human rights, terrorism and non-proliferation criteria. The bill also creates a $250 million transition fund for the next two years to help Syria’s political opposition transition to governing the country, including supporting new institutions and supporting government institutions that currently exist.

While most of the committee members strongly supported the bill sponsored by chairman Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., and ranking member Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., of the three senators who opposed, Rand Paul, R-Ky., was the most vocal, calling the Syria conflict “murky” and warning that America was getting involved in a situation “where it’s impossible to know who are friends are.”

Paul cited the current problem with insider attacks in Afghanistan as an example of how, when not careful, the United States leaves itself vulnerable to attack by the very people it is trying to help.

“Syria is 100 times messier than Afghanistan,” Paul said, and warned that the measure could be “a slippery slope to war.”

Sen. Tom Udall, D-N.M., also expressed skepticism of the act, saying that he doesn’t think the United States knows whom they are really arming.

But Senators Marco Rubio, R-Fla.; John McCain, R-Ariz.; Corker, and Menendez passionately argued that if the United States doesn’t do anything now, the only people with weapons will be the Assad regime and the extremist elements of the opposition.

“Extremists groups with links to al Qaeda are exploiting the conflict and gaining ground in a state with large chemical weapon stockpiles,” Menendez said. ” The time to act and turn the tide against Assad is now.”

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Sasha Mordovets/Getty Images(TEL AVIV) -- The Syrian military said on Tuesday that it fired on an Israeli army jeep in the contested Golan Heights in the early hours of the morning, destroying it.

Israel said the jeep was slightly damaged and there were no casualties, but the incident raised fears that the long-time enemies could soon once again find themselves embroiled in renewed conflict.

Just after 1 a.m., the Israeli vehicle on patrol was fired upon by Syrian forces, both sides reported. Syria said the jeep had crossed the ceasefire line in the mountainous Golan Heights that divides the two countries and was heading to the village of Beer Ajam, on the ceasefire line. Israel said the jeep hadn’t crossed, but was near Tal Fares, in the Golan Heights area that Israel captured in the 1967 six-day war.

Israel responded quickly to the Syrian fire with precision Tammuz rockets and “reported a direct hit,” the Israel Defense Forces said in a statement. “Our policy is clear: we do not intervene in what goes on in Syria, or in its civil war,” said Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon on Israel army radio. “We do not and will not allow any Syrian fire to enter our territory. Last night a Syrian army target was destroyed as a result of such fire.”

Israel and Syria are technically in a state of war, but the border has remained relatively quiet during the four decades of rule by President Bashar al-Assad and his father, Hafez, before him.

Tuesday’s incident was the latest in a string of cross-border fire coming from Syria that Israel has largely dismissed as an unintentional spillover from the war raging next door between Syrian forces and the rebels. But for the first time in Syria’s two-year civil war, Syria claimed responsibility for the attack on Israel.

“Whoever thinks that he is able to test our strength, alert and readiness to maintain our dignity and sovereignty is mistaken,” the Syrian army’s statement read. The incident comes just days after what Israel said were two mortars from Syria that landed on Mount Hermon in the northernmost part of the occupied Golan Heights.  It was then partially closed to the Israeli public and a group calling itself the “Free Palestine Movement” claimed responsibility for the attack.

Fears that that the war in Syria will spill over and drag in neighboring countries are at their highest point in the 26 months since the uprising in Syria started. Tension between Syria and Israel is particularly high following three Israeli air strikes on Syrian targets in January and May. Israel has sought to tamp down the tension by not confirming or denying the strikes, believed to have been on a research center near Damascus and on shipments of Iranian missiles bound for the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.

In response, both Assad and Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, warned that a new “resistance front” would be opened in the Golan Heights. “We announce that we stand with the Syrian popular resistance and offer material and spiritual support as well as coordination in order to liberate the Syrian Golan,” said Nasrallah.

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Iraqi Prime Minister office via Getty Images(BAGHDAD) -- Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is accusing some lawmakers of fueling the latest sectarian unrest that's responsible for close to 250 deaths in his country over a five-day period.

The Shiite leader also blamed large Sunni demonstrations for counteracting his attempts at achieving national unity almost a year-and-a-half after U.S. forces pulled out of Iraq.

Sunnis and Kurds contend its al-Maliki who's stoking sectarian tensions by marginalizing minorities.

Either way, violence has picked up during the past two months, with reports Monday of at least 95 deaths in predominantly Shiite areas of the country.  Two days earlier, insurgents struck largely Sunni regions, killing dozens.

Monday's attacks included explosions reported in 10 separate sections of Baghdad where Shiites congregate in marketplaces and other busy spots.  As many as 50 people were killed in the Baghdad attacks, which also left at least 150 others wounded.

Al Qaeda-linked groups in Iraq are believed to be the main culprits, but Sunni and Shiite militants are also suspected of instilling violence.

While al-Maliki has called for calm, some Sunni tribesman, particularly in Anbar province where many of the protests are taking place, are promising to keep fighting back against security forces sent by the Shiite-led government.

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Scott Peterson/Getty Images(NEW YORK) -- The battle for the Western Syrian city of Qusayr is being described by both sides as the possible turning point of the two-year civil war.

What makes this conflict different from other cities where fighting continues to rage is that it also involves the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, which is allied with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in his bid to crush opposition groups seeking his ouster.

Even as the Syrian government has been hitting rebel strongholds hard with air strikes in Qusayr, Hezbollah is sustaining heavy losses.

One Syrian watchdog group reports that nearly 30 Hezbollah guerrillas have died so far in the battle for Qusayr, not far from Lebanon's eastern border.

There are conflicting reports about who is gaining ground in the city located in Homs province although there's wide acknowledgement Syrian government forces regained control of more than half of Qusayr since the fight began last Sunday.

Taking back Qusayr in its entirety is seen as crucial for al-Assad as it would give him better footing in western Syria although rebel forces still seem to be holding the upper hand in northern and eastern territories.

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Creatas/Thinkstock(MOSCOW) -- Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) claims to have cornered a group of suspected militants in the town of Orekhovo-Zuyevo, east of Moscow, thwarting a possible terror attack, according to Russian news reports. The group opened fire, and two suspects were killed in the shootout. A third person was detained.

The reports don’t say when the operation took place.

The FSB claims the suspects were planning a terror attack in Moscow, but reports thus far don’t provide any details of their plans. The three are reportedly from Russia and received training in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
 
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