An atmosphere of confrontation has been simmering for months, and has peaked in several rounds of clashes between militant groups firing rockets from Gaza into southern Israel and Israeli forces carrying out airstrikes against the militant groups.
Recently, Kurdish assertiveness in Syria has set off rounds of clashes, pitting Kurds against rebel groups that accuse them of collaborating with Mr. Assad, and against fighters linked to Al Qaeda who see Kurdish control as a challenge to their plan to establish an Islamic state.
After the last round of clashes, some activists in the Bay Area released a video warning Occupy Oakland protesters to "beware of police infiltrators and provocateurs" in their midst.
In the heaviest fighting this year, 17 were killed last week in the latest round of clashes between militias from the Sunni Bab al-Tabbaneh and Alawite Jabal Mohsen neighborhoods.
The Pakistani Army said Thursday that Indian troops had killed another Pakistani soldier in the latest round of clashes in Kashmir, the disputed Himalayan region.
The skeptics found fresh evidence for their concerns in a new round of clashes, gunfire and mortar bombs today in Hebron, the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
The United States, which intervened diplomatically to help damp down the last major round of clashes between Israel and Hezbollah four years ago, ought to do so again, as part of a larger effort to revive the peace talks with Syria.
On Friday, as the latest round of clashes kicked off, Khaled Dawoud, the spokesman for the National Salvation Front, an alliance of anti-Morsi political parties led by ElBaradei and involved in the military cabinet, resigned out of disgust at the ongoing use of force by the police.
Ethnic and religious tensions between Muslims in the north and Christians in the south, discrimination by southerners against immigrants from the north, and frustration over corruption in a country where most subsist on less than $2 a day while top officials have access to billions in oil revenues have set off the latest round of clashes, much as they have in the past.
Though the recent round of clashes between the splintering groups has not come close to taking as many lives as the thousands who were dying each month during the height of the conflict in 2003 and 2004, many aid officials say they fear that the situation is getting out of control.
With such things as rocket-propelled grenades and anti-aircraft guns on open display, Saada is said to boast the best-stocked arms bazaar west of Pakistan's Peshawar.After the last round of clashes sputtered out in July 2008, Houthi forces quietly regained possession of much of the country around Saada, positioning themselves to block the few roads that give access to the rest of the country.
