Reuters

A member of Iraq security personnel inspects the site of a car bomb attack at Jadidat al-Shatt in Diyala province, 40 km (25 miles) north of Baghdad, June 10, 2013. At least 13 people were killed when two car bombs and a suicide attacker targeted a grocery market in a mainly Shi'ite Muslim town north of Baghdad, police and local officials said on Monday.

No group claimed responsibility for the day-long attacks, most of them in northern Iraq, but officials blame much of the violence that has killed nearly 2,000 people since April on Sunni Islamist insurgents linked to al Qaeda's local wing.

The bloodshed has accompanied rising political tensions between Iraq's majority Shi'ite leaders and the Sunni community, who believe they have been marginalized since the fall of Saddam Hussein after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

Al-Manar TV via Reuters

A man carrying a Syrian flag with an image of President Bashar Assad on it looks down from a clock tower in Qusair after the Syrian army took control of the city from rebel fighters in this still image taken from video, on Wednesday.

A young soldier clambered to the top of a badly damaged clock tower in the battered Syrian city of Qusair and planted the regime flag for all the world to see. In case there was any doubt as to his political leanings, he glued President Bashar Assad's smiling face onto the banner. Subtlety – like all good things in times of war – is easily sacrificed.

There is no question that the fall of Qusair to Assad's forces is a major blow to rebels hoping to bring down the regime. This small western town straddles one of the major highways that link the capital Damascus to the Alawite strongholds on the Mediterranean coast. It is from these Alawite communities that Assad -- an Alawite (a sect of Shi'ite Islam) himself -- derives most of his power.

More crucially for the rebels, the loss of Qusair means the loss of a major supply line into central Syria. The opposition in that specific area relied heavily on the Sunni community in neighboring Lebanon for arms and medical aid, so without Qusair their access to Lebanon will be severely handicapped.

Should the Syrian regime manage to seal off the Lebanese border completely, then all the arms shipments and aid that accompanies them will dry up.

However, as significant as this battle is for Assad, the victory in Qusair does not necessarily mean the civil war is anywhere near its end.

The rebels still hold large swaths of the country – especially in the north, where they are better equipped than their fellow fighters in Qusair.

Their lines of support are also much stronger. Northern Syria runs along the Turkish border for hundreds of miles and the Turkish government has openly supported the rebels with arms, supplies and all the available logistical back-up they need. This level of backing, as well as increased arms supplies from Arab states like Qatar and Saudi Arabia, is not likely to evaporate.

Additionally, the European Union has lifted its self-imposed ban on supplying the rebels with arms. The events of the last few days may concentrate their minds further and speed up the supplies to the opposition.

This war has claimed over 80,000 lives in almost two years. The number of injured is many times more. No regime, however coercive, can quell such a rebellion. Qusair was a major morale boost for the Syrian regime but Assad and his army should not forget that it took weeks of heavy fighting and the intervention of thousands of Hezbollah fighters to dislodge the rebels from the town.

The victory was hardly a cakewalk and other battles will most likely be even harder to win.

Slideshow: Syria uprising

/

A look back at the conflict that has overtaken the country.

Launch slideshow

• UN launches 'largest humanitarian appeal in history' for Syria
• Syria's Assad claims victory in major battle, rebels say they are being massacred
• How a line drawn in the sand nearly 100 years ago helped create Syria mess
• McCain insists US weapons would 'help the right people' in Syria war

Karim Kadim / AP file

People gather at the scene of a car bomb attack in the Sadr City neighborhood of Baghdad, Iraq, May 16.

BAGHDAD - More than 1,000 people were killed in violence in Iraq in May, making it the deadliest month since the sectarian slaughter of 2006-07, the United Nations reported on Saturday, raising fears of a return to civil war.

"That is a sad record," Martin Kobler, the U.N. envoy in Baghdad, said in a statement. "Iraqi political leaders must act immediately to stop this intolerable bloodshed."

Nearly 2,000 people have been killed in the last two months as al Qaeda and Sunni Islamist insurgents, invigorated by the Sunni-led revolt in neighboring Syria and by Iraqi Sunni discontent at home, seek to revive the kind of all-out inter-communal conflict that killed tens of thousands in 2006-2007.

Just this week, multiple bombings battered Shiite and Sunni neighborhoods in the Iraqi capital Baghdad, where at least 70 people were killed on Monday and 25 on Thursday.

The renewed bloodletting reflects worsening tensions between Iraq's Shiite-led government and its Sunni minority, seething with resentment at their treatment since Saddam Hussein was overthrown by the U.S.-led invasion of 2003 and later hanged.

Al Qaeda's local wing and other Sunni armed groups are now regaining ground lost during the long battle with U.S. troops.

An Iraqi army raid on a Sunni protest camp in the town of Hawija in April ignited violence that killed more than 700 people in that month, by a U.N. count. That had been the highest monthly toll in almost five years until it was exceeded in May.

At the height of Iraq's sectarian violence, when Baghdad was carved up between Sunni and Shi'ite gunmen who preyed on rival communities, the monthly death count sometimes topped 3,000.

Khalid Mohammed / AP

Security forces inspect the scene of a car bombing on Sadoun Street in Baghdad on Monday. A wave of attacks killed at least 57 people and wounded 168, officials said.

More than 70 people were killed in a wave of bombings in markets in Shi'ite neighborhoods across Baghdad on Monday in worsening sectarian violence in Iraq. 

No group claimed responsibility for the blasts. But Sunni Muslim Islamist insurgents and al-Qaeda' s Iraqi wing have increased attacks since the beginning of the year and often target Shi'ite districts. 

More than a dozen blasts tore into markets and shopping areas in districts across the Iraqi capital, including twin bombs just several hundred meters apart that killed at least 13 people in the capital's Sadr City area, police and hospital officials said. 

"A driver hit another car and left pretending to bring traffic police. Another car rushed to take him away and right after his car exploded among people who had gathered to see what was happening," said bystander Hassan Kadhim. "People were shouting for help and blood covered their faces." 

Tensions between the Shi'ite leadership and the Sunni Muslim minority are at their worst since U.S. troops left in December 2011, and the conflict in Syria is straining Iraq's fragile communal balance. 

More than 700 people were killed in attacks in April, according to a U.N. count, the highest monthly toll in almost five years. So far in May more than 300 have died. 

Thousands of Sunnis began staging street protests last December against Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, whom they accuse of marginalizing their sect since the fall of Saddam Hussein after the 2003 invasion. 

The latest surge in violence began in April after a raid by the Iraqi army on a Sunni Muslim protest camp in the town of Hawija led to clashes with the security forces and more attacks. 

Bombings on Shi'ite and Sunni mosques, security forces and Sunni tribal leaders over a month-long surge in violence are heightening worries Iraq risks returning to the level of sectarian violence that killed thousands in 2006-2007. 

Related:

• Explosions in Baghdad kill more than 60
• Suicide bomb kills 27 at Baghdad Internet cafe
• At least 20 dead, 200 hurt in wave of attacks across Iraq

Hussein Malla / AP

Lebanese soldiers investigate at a damaged room where a rocket struck an apartment in a building at Chiyah district, south of Beirut, Lebanon, on Sunday.

BEIRUT - Two rockets hit a Shiite Muslim district of southern Beirut on Sunday and wounded several people, residents said, a day after the leader of Lebanese Shiite militant movement Hezbollah said his group would continue fighting in Syria until victory. 

It was the first attack to apparently target Hezbollah's stronghold in the south of the Lebanese capital since the outbreak of the two-year conflict in neighboring Syria, which has sharply heightened Lebanon's own sectarian tensions. 

One of the rockets landed in a car sales yard next to a busy road junction in the  Chiyah neighborhood and the other hit an apartment several hundred meters away, wounding five people, residents said. 

There was no immediate claim of responsibility and the army said it was investigating who was behind the attack. 

A Lebanese security source said three rocket launchers were found, one of which had failed to launch, in the hills to the southeast of the Lebanese capital, about 5 miles from the area where the two rockets landed. 

The rocket strikes came hours after Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, a powerful supporter of President Bashar al-Assad in neighboring Syria's civil war, said his fighters were committed to the conflict whatever the costs. 

"We will continue to the end of the road. We accept this responsibility and will accept all sacrifices and expected consequences of this position," he said in a televised speech on Saturday evening. "We will be the ones who bring victory." 

Syria's two-year uprising has polarized Lebanon, with Sunni Muslims supporting the rebellion against Assad and Shiite Hezbollah and its allies standing by Assad. 

Until recently, Nasrallah insisted that Hezbollah had not sent guerrillas to fight alongside Assad's forces, but in his speech on Saturday he said it had been fighting in Syria for several months to defend Lebanon from radical Islamist groups he said were now driving Syria's rebellion. 

Qusair offensive
Hezbollah forces and Assad's troops launched a fierce assault last week aimed at driving Syrian rebels out of Qusair, a strategic town close to the Lebanese border which rebels have used as a supply route for weapons coming into the country. 

Nasrallah's speech was condemned by Sunni Muslim former Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri who said that Hezbollah, set up by Iran in the 1980s to fight Israeli occupation forces in south Lebanon, had abandoned anti-Israeli "resistance" in favor of sectarian conflict in Syria. 

"The resistance is ending by your hand and your will," Hariri said in a statement. "The resistance announced its political and military suicide in Qusair." 

Hariri is backed by Saudi Arabia, which along with other Sunni Muslim Gulf Arab monarchies has strongly supported the uprising against Iranian-backed Assad, whose minority Alawite sect is an offshoot of Shiite Islam. 

Lebanon, haunted by its own 1975-1990 civil war and torn by the same sectarian rifts as its powerful neighbor, has sought to pursue a police of "dissociation" from the Syrian turmoil. 

But it is struggling to deal with nearly half a million refugees who have fled the fighting in Syria and its northern city of Tripoli has seen frequent explosions of violence between Sunni Muslims and the small Alawite community. 

At least 25 people have been killed in Tripoli over the last week in street fighting which has coincided with the battle for Qusair across the border. 

Related:

• Turkey builds wall at Syrian border after bombings

• Analysis: In Syria, 'winning' is a relative term

BAGHDAD — More than 60 people were killed in a series of car bomb explosions targeting Shi'ite Muslims across Iraq on Monday, police and medics said, part of the worst sectarian violence since U.S. troops pulled out in December 2011. 

The attacks brought the number killed in sectarian clashes in the past week to over 200, and tensions between Shi'ites, who now lead Iraq, and minority Sunni Muslims have reached a point where some fear a return to all-out civil conflict. 

No group claimed responsibility for the bombings. Iraq is home to a number of Sunni Islamist insurgent groups, including the al Qaeda-affiliated Islamic State of Iraq, which has previously targeted Shi'ites in a bid to provoke a wider sectarian confrontation. 

Nine people were killed in one of two car bomb explosions in Basra, a predominantly Shi'ite city 260 miles southeast of Baghdad, police and medics said. 

"I was on duty when a powerful blast shook the ground," said a police officer near the site of that attack in the Hayaniya neighborhood. 

"The blast hit a group of day laborers gathering near a sandwich kiosk," he added, describing corpses littering the ground. "One of the dead bodies was still grabbing a blood-soaked sandwich in his hand." 

Five other people were killed in a second blast inside a bus terminal in Saad Square, also in Basra, police and medics said. 

In Baghdad, at least 30 people were killed in car bomb explosions in Kamaliya, Ilaam, Diyala Bridge, al-Shurta, Shula, Zaafaraniya and Sadr City - all areas with a high concentration of Shi'ites. 

A parked car bomb also exploded in the mainly Shi'ite district of Shaab in northern Baghdad, killing 12 people and wounding 26 others, police and hospital sources said. 

In a separate incident, police said a parked car blew up near a bus carrying Shi'ite Muslim pilgrims from Iran near Balad, 80 km (50 miles) north of Baghdad, killing five Iranian pilgrims and two Iraqis who were traveling to the Shi'ite holy city of Samarra. 

CORPSES FOUND 

 In the western province of Anbar, the bodies of 14 people kidnapped on Saturday, including six policemen, were found dumped in the desert with bullet wounds to the head and chest, police and security sources said. 

When Sunni-Shi'ite bloodshed was at its height in 2006-07, Anbar was in the grip of al Qaeda's Iraqi wing, which has regained strength in recent months. 

In 2007, Anbar's Sunni tribes banded together with U.S. troops and helped subdue al Qaeda. Known as the "Sahwa" or Awakening militia, they are now on the government payroll and are often targeted by Sunni militants as punishment for co-operating with the Shi'ite-led government. 

Three Sahwa members were killed in a car bomb explosion as they collected their salaries in the city of Samarra, north of Baghdad, police said. 

Iraq's delicate intercommunal fabric is under increasing strain from the conflict in neighboring Syria, which has drawn Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims from across the region into a proxy war. 

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's main regional ally is Shi'ite Iran, while the rebels fighting to overthrow him are supported by Sunni Gulf powers Saudi Arabia and Qatar. 

Iraq says it takes no sides in the conflict, but leaders in Tehran and Baghdad fear Assad's demise would make way for a hostile Sunni Islamist government in Syria, weakening Shi'ite influence in the Middle East.

The prospect of a shift in the sectarian balance of power has emboldened Iraq's Sunni minority, embittered by Shi'ite dominance since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein by U.S.-led forces in 2003. 

Thousands of Sunnis began staging street protests last December against Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, whom they accuse of marginalizing their sect. 

A raid by the Iraqi army on a protest camp in the town of Hawija last month ignited a bout of violence that left more than 700 people dead in April, according to a U.N. count, the highest monthly toll in almost five years. 

At the height of sectarian violence in 2006-07, the monthly death toll sometimes topped 3,000.

Anja Niedringhaus / AP

Ahmedi guards protecting an Ahmedi mosque in Lahore, Pakistan on April 30, 2013. Ahmedis are reviled by mainstream Muslims as heretics because they believe a prophet followed Mohammed, defying the basic tenet of Islam that says Mohammed is the last prophet.

Lahore, Pakistan — In majority Muslim Pakistan, religious minorities say democracy is killing them.

Intolerance has been on the rise for the past five years under Pakistan's democratically elected government because of the growing violence of Islamic radicals, who are then courted by political parties, say many in the country's communities of Shiite Muslims, Christians, Hindus and other minorities.

On Saturday, the country will elect a new parliament, marking the first time one elected government is replaced by another in the history of Pakistan, which over its 66-year existence has repeatedly seen military rule. But minorities are not celebrating. Some of the fiercest Islamic extremists are candidates in the vote, and minorities say even the mainstream political parties pander to radicals to get votes, often campaigning side-by-side with well-known militants.

Anja Niedringhaus / AP

Ahmedis praying in their mosque, which displays an Arabic sign saying 'In the name of god, people are praying', in Lahore on April 30, 2013.

Anja Niedringhaus / AP

A Shiite worshipper at a shrine in Jhang on May 1, 2013. Minority Shiites in Pakistan have little hope that the May 11 general elections will help them because they fear Sunni radicals, who have targeted Shiites, could gain political strength.

About 96 percent of Pakistan's population of 180 million is Muslim. Most are Sunni, but according to the CIA Factbook about 10 to 15 percent are members of the Shiite sect. The remaining 4 percent are adherents to other religions such as Christians, Hindus and Ahmedis.

More than a dozen representatives of Pakistan's minorities interviewed by The Associated Press expressed fears the vote will only hand more influence to extremists. Since the 2008 elections, sectarian attacks have been relentless and minorities have found themselves increasingly targeted by radical Islamic militants. Minorities have little faith the new election will change that. Read the full story.

Anja Niedringhaus / AP

A Christian woman peering out from inside a church as angry Christians protest the beating of a young man from the Joseph Colony, a Christian neighborhood in Lahore, on April 30, 2013.

Anja Niedringhaus / AP

Barber Elias, 25, a Christian who was injured when he was beaten by radical Muslims, in the Joseph Colony in Lahore on April 30, 2013.

Anja Niedringhaus / AP

Christians protesting the beating of a young Christian belonging to the Joseph Colony, in Lahore on April 30, 2013.

Anja Niedringhaus / AP

A Christian repairing his home after it was attacked by radical Muslims, in the Joseph Colony in Lahore on April 30, 2013.

Anja Niedringhaus / AP

Homeless Hindus sleeping in a shrine cared for by Omparkarh Narian, 55, in Rawalpindi on May 4, 2013.

Slideshow: Pakistan: A nation in turmoil

Asif Hassan / AFP - Getty Images

Images of daily life, political pursuits, religious rites and deadly violence.

Launch slideshow

TEL AVIV, Israel - A helicopter carrying Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was reportedly forced to land in the north of the country after an unmanned drone was spotted trying to infiltrate Israel's airspace.

The prime minister's helicopter took off after the drone was shot down, according reports in Haaretz and Ynetnews. 

"The (unmanned aerial vehicle) was tracked by IDF ground and aerial surveillance for the duration of its flight path as it attempted to approach Israel's coast," the Israeli Defense Forces, or IDF, said in a statement.  "Israel Air Force aircraft intercepted the UAV and successfully downed the target five nautical miles off the coast of the northern Israeli city of Haifa."

The IDF declined to confirm Israeli media reports that Netanyahu's helicopter landed, but the prime minister did issue a statement shortly after news of the incident was released.

"I view with utmost gravity this attempt to violate our border. We will continue to do everything necessary to safeguard the security of Israel's citizens," the prime minister said in a statement. 

The incident was the second time in seven months that a drone had been intercepted in Israeli airspace, the IDF said. It did not say where the drone originated, but during the 2006 Israeli war with Lebanon, Israeli jets intercepted two drones launched by Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite militant organization. 

"UAVs pose a serious threat to the State of Israel's security. The IDF will not tolerate any attempt to violate Israel's sovereignty or harm its security," the IDF statement added. 

The IDF said it was searching the area over which the drone was shot down on Thursday evening.

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BAGHDAD -- Car bombs and attacks in cities across Iraq -- including two blasts at a checkpoint at Baghdad’s international airport -- killed at least 20 people and wounded more than 200 on Monday, police said.

The wave of attacks in Baghdad, Kirkuk, Tuz Khurmato and other towns came just days before Iraqis vote in provincial elections that will test political stability more than a year after U.S. troops left the country.

No one claimed responsibility for Monday's bombings, but al Qaeda's local wing, the Islamic State of Iraq, and other Sunni Islamist groups have vowed to wage a campaign against Shiites and the government to stoke sectarian confrontation.

Ako Rasheed / Reuters

Iraq was hit by a wave of attacks on Monday, including a bomb blast in Kirkuk, 155 miles north of Baghdad.

Two people were killed by car bombs that exploded at a Baghdad airport checkpoint, police sources said.

Attacks on the heavily guarded airport and the fortified International Zone housing many embassies are rare, but insurgents have stepped up bombings this year.

"Two vehicles managed to reach the entrance of Baghdad airport and were left parked there. While we were doing routine searches, the two cars exploded seconds apart. Two passengers travelling to the airport were killed," a police source said.

The most deadly attack was in Tuz Khurmato, 105 miles north of Baghdad, where four bombs targeting police patrols killed five people and wounded 67, officials said.

Iraqis vote on Saturday for members of provincial councils in a ballot that will test Shiite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's political muscle against Shiite and Sunni rivals before a parliamentary election in 2014.

Ten years after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, al Qaeda is regaining ground, especially in the western desert close to Syria's border. Islamic State of Iraq says it has joined forces with al-Nusra Front rebels fighting in Syria.

Sunni insurgents, especially al Qaeda, see Baghdad's Shiite-led government as oppressors of the country's Sunni minority and see Shiites in general as apostates from true Islam.

Related:

Iraq, 10 years on: Did invasion bring 'hope and progress' to millions as Bush vowed?

Ten years after Iraq invasion, US troops ask: 'Was it worth it?'

Bombs kill at least 50 on 10th anniversary of Iraq invasion

A suicide bomber killed 20 people and wounded dozens on Saturday at a political rally in the Iraqi city of Baqouba, officials said.

The bomber detonated his explosives as Muthana al-Jourani, a Sunni candidate for the provincial council, was hosting lunch for supporters in a large hospitality tent pitched next to his house, councilman Sadiq al-Huseini said.

Baqouba, a mixed Sunni-Shiite city some 60 kilometers (35 miles) northeast of Baghdad, has been a focus of insurgent attacks and sectarian conflict in the decade since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion. Violence is expected to surge in the lead up to Iraq's provincial elections on April 20.

A health official and police officer who provided details about the attack spoke anonymously because they weren't authorized to speak to media.

The police officer said al-Jourani, who was injured in the attack, had not requested any extra security for the political event.

Eyewitness Ahmad al-Hadlouj, a 34-year-old who was wounded in the blast, said hundreds of people had gathered in the side street for the rally. His father, a member of the candidate's political bloc, was also wounded.

"This is our blood (shed) for the people," said al-Hadlouj. "We will still participate in elections."

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but the police officer said the attack was the hallmark of al-Qaida militants who have used suicide bombers, car bombings and coordinated attacks to shake security in Iraq, hoping that will undermine confidence in the Shiite-led government. The hard-line Sunni extremists see Shiites and those who work with them as heretics.

A wave of deadly bombings and attacks in March prompted Iraqi officials to conclude that al-Qaida's Iraqi branch, known as the Islamic State of Iraq, has been getting stronger. They say rising lawlessness on the Syria-Iraq frontier and cross-border cooperation with the Syrian militant group Nusra Front has improved the militants' supply of weapons and foreign fighters.

Related:

• Kerry has strong message for Iraq's Maliki
• FAA allows US airlines to operate in parts of Iraq
• Gunmen attack Iraq's Akkas gasfield, four local workers killed: officials

Mohammed Ameen / Reuters

Residents gather at the site of a car bomb attack in Baghdad. A series of apparently coordinated blasts hit Shiite districts across Baghdad and south of the Iraqi capital on Tuesday.

BAGHDAD - Car bombs and a suicide blast hit Shiite districts of Baghdad and south of Iraq's capital on Tuesday, killing at least 50 people on the 10th anniversary of the invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein. 

Sunni Islamist insurgents tied to al Qaeda have stepped up attacks on Shiite targets since the start of the year in a campaign to stoke sectarian tension and undermine Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government. 

Tuesday's car bombs exploded near a busy Baghdad market, close to the heavily fortified Green Zone and in other districts across the capital. A suicide bomber driving a truck attacked a police base in a Shiite town just south of the capital, police and hospital sources said. 

"I was driving my taxi and suddenly I felt my car rocked. Smoke was all around. I saw two bodies on the ground. People were running and shouting everywhere," said Al Radi, a taxi driver caught in one of the blasts in Baghdad's Sadr City.

Another 160 people were wounded in the attacks, hospital officials said.

No group claimed responsibility for Tuesday's blasts, but Iraq's al Qaeda wing, Islamic State of Iraq, has vowed to take back ground lost in its long war with American troops. Since the start of the year the group has carried out a string of high-profile attacks. 

Gunmen and suicide bombers stormed the well-protected Justice Ministry building in central Baghdad on Thursday, killing 25 people in an attack by the al Qaeda affiliate. 

A decade after U.S. and Western troops swept into Iraq to remove Saddam from power, Iraq still struggles with a stubborn insurgency, sectarian frictions and political instability among its Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish factions. 

Syria's civil war is further fanning Iraq's volatility as Islamist insurgents invigorated by the mainly Sunni rebellion against Syrian President Bashar Assad try to tap into Sunni Muslim discontent in Iraq. 

Related:

Iraq, 10 years on: Did invasion bring 'hope and progress' to millions as Bush vowed?

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Full Iraq coverage from NBC News

This story was originally published on Tue Mar 19, 2013 6:34 AM EDT