Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: Aleppo --- Expecting the Regime Assault

1810 GMT: Syria. Russia has made a direct threat that any attack on its naval base in Tartous will be met with extreme prejudice:

"If the armed Syrian opposition ventures to implement their threat and to attack the Russian naval supplies and maintenance facility, Russia has ample capabilities in the region now to provide an adequate response. We won't recommend hotheads in the Syrian opposition doing that," a source in the Russian General Staff told the Interfax news agency.

What's fascinating is the source also added a line about the Syrian government having stepped up their support of the base as well.

Also interesting, the word "now," indicating that the Russians have significantly stepped up their ability to strike targets inside Syria.

Still, it's an unverified threat from a low-level anonymous staff member. One would expect any attack on Russian property to be met with force. What's interesting isn't the content of the report - it's the fact that a threat was made in the first place. Whether this was a direct response to a threat from insurgents, or a provocation, is not known.

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Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: Just Another Day --- 114 People Die on Monday

2005 GMT: Syria. Another interesting pickup by Bill Neely, who is in Damascus and has been to Douma today. He notes that while he has not personally witnessed this, he has seen and heard the shells fall and believes this is real:

Video shows #Syria army bombarding #Damascus suburb youtube.com/watch?v=iFFupm…#Douma

— Bill Neely (@billneelyitv) July 3, 2012

1948 GMT: Syria. It's been another bloody day in Deir Ez Zor, as battles for control of key areas continue to rage.

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Egypt, Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: Morsi Claims Presidential Win, But Military Tightens Grip on Power

See also Turkey Analysis: An Opposition MP Gives Prime Minister Erdogan An Edge on the Kurdish Issue
Bahrain Opinion: Why Younis Ashoori's Imprisonment Points to Repression Rather than Reform
Sunday's Egypt, Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: A Vote of Uncertainty

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1948 GMT: Syria. The Local Coordination Committees of Syria claim 51 people have died at the hands of security forces today, including 15 in the Damascus suburbs and 12 in Homs Province.

1639 GMT: Syria. Claimed footage of Syrian forces dragging away two unarmed women:

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Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: More than 140 Die as US and Russia Talk of "Plan B"

Claimed eyewitness testimony to Wednesday's mass killings in al-Qubair in Syria's Hama Province

See also Syria Transcript: Kofi Annan's Speech to the UN General Assembly
Palestine Feature: The "Lost" Refugees on the Iraq-Syria Border
Yemen Feature: Who are the Competing Factions?
Turkey Live Coverage (7 June): Politics and Pressure over the Kurdistan Talks
Wednesday's Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: The Spread of the Conflict

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2030 GMT: Syria. Back from an extended academic break to find that UN monitors returned to their base in Hama after being unable to visit the site of Wednesday's mass killing in the village of al-Qubeir.

Meanwhile, State news agency SANA has posted the regime's presentation of the slayings:

Several people from Mazraat al-Qubeir and Marzaf villages in Hama countryside narrated the horror and crimes which were committed by the armed terrorist groups against them, revealing the reality of the horrific crime which took place in their village last night as 9 citizens were killed with cold blood.

In phone calls with the Syrian TV, Abu Hawash, a citizen from Mazraat al-Qubeir village, said that armed terrorists who had RPG launchers and PKC machineguns stormed the area and attacked children and women, calling on the Syrian army and law-enforcement forces to protect them from the terrorists.

Another citizen denounced the bloody satellite channels which are counterfeiting the truth to serve their interests.

For his part, Abu Mohammad said an armed terrorist group infiltrated to Mazraat al-Qubeir and killed 9 citizens, adding that after the crime took place, the residents called the authorities to protect them.

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Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: Largest Protests Ever?

Homes burn as gunfire rocks the Khalidiyah district of Homs on Friday night.

See also Egypt Live Coverage: Former President Mubarak Learns His Fate
Friday's Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: Another Mass Execution?

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1943 GMT: Lebanon. The toll from today's clashes in Tripoli between supporters and opponents of the Syrian regime has risen to nine dead and 42 wounded, according to residents and a doctor.

1919 GMT: Syria. The Local Co-ordination Committees of Syria has said that 27 people died across the country today, including 11 in Homs Province and eight in Idlib Province.

A reporter for State TV, presenting live, is hit with a shoe by a man who shouts, "The Syrian TV is a liar!".

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Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: A Peace Plan Accepted?

A demonstration in front of the Grand Mosque in the Damascus suburb of Douma on Tuesday night

See also Middle East and Iran Videos: 4 Activists on Women's Rights After the "Arab Spring"
Tuesday's Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: 65 Dead Amidst Manoeuvres for Talks

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2110 GMT: Kuwaiti authorities arrested a man late on Tuesday for allegedly insulting the Prophet Mohammed on his Twitter account.

The man, whose name was not disclosed, defamed the Islamic faith and slandered the Prophet Mohammed, his companions and his wife, the Ministry of Interior said in a statement issued on state-run news agency KUNA. He is being interrogated ahead of court proceedings.

The ministry saiid that it “regretted the abusing of social networks by some individuals to offend basic Islamic and spiritual values, vowing to show zero tolerance in combating such serious offences”.

In September a Kuwaiti court convicted a man for insulting Gulf rulers and posting inflammatory sectarian comments on social media, but he was released immediately because of time already served while awaiting trial.

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Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: Remembering All the Dead

A montage of more than 70 people who have died in violence in Bahrain since the start of mass protests in February 2011

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2127 GMT: A member of the Syrian National Council, Mulham al Jundi reports on the situation in Baba Amr, Homs:

In a phone call with Abu Haneen from the heart of Baba Amr, he informed us of the following:

Baba Amr has faced multiple attempts of being stormed by the Syrian National Army. Activists worked hard to save the neighborhood and protect the civilians. In the meanwhile, Baba Amr was still being shelled. Clashes continued until the evening. The Free Syrian Army succeeded in affecting loss in the Syrian National Army, both people & supplies. Some of the leaders of the Farooq Division left the site of the clashes to securely transport women and children to safer regions. Activists are still defending the neighborhood against the army that was essentially defeated at its attempts. The activists have seized control of Baba Amr and the Assad army is positioned at the outskirts of the region.

While we can't verify the specific details of the report, there are two key points that continue to be repeated by all the trusted sources EA has made contact with - the FSA has been clashing with Assad soldiers, especially in the northeast of Baba Amr, and the troops have not fully occupied the neighborhood...

Yet. The third detail that is in nearly every report - Assad's military is capable of taking Baba Amr. It is possible that they are holding out to lessen the media attention, or because they want to avoid heavy losses, but the entire city is surrounded by extremely large amounts of pro-Assad military forces, and tonight they are closer to Baba Arm than they have been since the siege started.

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Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: Can the Regime Recapture the Suburbs?

2215 GMT: More impressive video from Bab al Dreib, Homs - the fighters in the foreground are with the Free Syrian Army, and they are attempting to capture a hospital nearby. We're told by sources that by the end of the day, the FSA controlled the hospital and another checkpoint nearby:

2203 GMT: An EA correspondent in Bahrain sends us this video of the candle-lit vigil for Mohammed Ebrahim Yaghoob, the latest child to be killed in the uprising, that was held tonight in Mehaza village (see update at 2035 GMT):

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Syria, Bahrain (and Beyond) LiveBlog: Starting 2012 With a Bang

Bahraini police, after speaking to activist Nabeel Rajab, attack the protest march in Manama on Friday night

See also Syria Video: Amidst the Violence, A #SecurityFail Comedy Moment
Friday's Syria, Bahrain (and Beyond) LiveBlog: Calling for International Intervention?

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1930 GMT: Security camera footage showing the moment of yesterday's blast in Damascus has been obtained by the Al Alam News Network (and uploaded to YouTube via a third party). The commentators note that the explosion can be seen under the highway overpass, next to a car belonging to the security forces. See our liveblog yesterday for a map pinpointing the exact location of the blast.

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Syria, Bahrain (and Beyond) LiveBlog: Declaring Reform

See also Syria 1st-Hand: The Opposition's Quest for Arms and Ammunition
Bahrain 1st-Hand: "The World Looks Up to You" --- Attending the Mass Rally on Human Rights
Syria (and Beyond) LiveBlog: "Bring Your Tanks Here"

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Bahrain's King Hamad & British PM David Cameron2105 GMT: A tale of two contrasting interviews and Bahrain....

Sheikh Ali Salman, the head of the opposition group Al Wefaq, tells The Financial Times:

The US and UK should call for an elected, representative government, and a timetable and a road map to achieve that. If this does not happen then they should say that this regime has lost legitimacy. This is what is suitable if they want to talk about democracy and not show double standards in the Arab spring.

Salman welcomed some of the regime's steps after the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry report, notably allowing the Red Cross into prisons, but he was sceptical about others:

We don’t see an intention really to implement the report, they are just trying to provide a decorative picture. No one who reads the human rights report would think that the same government accused of the abuses could be allowed to implement the recommendations.

Salman set the condition of the end of the Prime Ministerial reign of more than 40 years of Sheikh Khalifa al-Khalifa --- if he did not resign, "the king should remove him, that is a normal, logical demand". He continued, “They don’t look at people as citizens who have rights – so long as this mentality is there, any changes will be limited."

Meanwhile, Con Coughlin of The Daily Telegraph uses an encounter with King Hamad to offer the effusive praise of "a fascinating insight into how the monarchies are managing to survive these challenging times....King Hamad has proved himself to be extremely adroit in dealing with the protesters' demands."

In the interview, the King declared:

What [has] happened was the result of individual acts, not government policy. It is not the policy of the Ministry of Interior to go and kill people on the roads. The policemen and soldiers involved in the killings did not take notice of the discipline side of matters.

If people have done something wrong then they should be held accountable. We have removed people from positions of authority so that this does not happen again.

The King continued, "I care about Bahrain. Bahrain is very dear to me. I will not allow people to play around with our laws."

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