CAIRO (AP) — Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood faces a wave of trials unlike any it has seen in its history, threatening to put a large number of its senior leaders behind bars for years, even life, as military-backed authorities determined to cripple the group prepare prosecutions on charges including inciting violence and terrorism.

The prosecutions are the next phase in a wide-ranging crackdown on the Brotherhood following the military's July ouster of President Mohammed Morsi, who goes on trial next month.

Morsi's trial, the most high-profile case, is setting a pattern for the others, aiming to show that the Brotherhood leadership directed a campaign of violence. Morsi is charged with inciting murder in connection to a protest during his year in office in which his supporters attacked protesters outside his palace.

Leaders may also be charged with fomenting violence in post-coup protests by Morsi's Islamist supporters demanding his reinstatement. Security forces have cracked down heavily on the protests, claiming some participants were armed, and have killed hundreds of Morsi backers. With each new round of protests and violence, prosecutors consider new charges that include incitement and arming supporters, Brotherhood lawyers say.

So far, at least nine and possibly more than a dozen cases are being put together, according to a prosecution official and Brotherhood lawyers. Each has multiple defendants. Four cases, including Morsi's, have been referred to trial with a total of at least 34 defendants, though a few are being tried in absentia. Ahmed Seif, a human rights lawyer following the investigations, predicted around 200 Brotherhood leaders and senior officials could eventually end up in court.

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FILE - In this Sunday, Aug. 25, 2013 file photo, lawyers for Muslim Brotherhood leaders, who were ar …

Brotherhood lawyer Mohammed Gharib denounced the cases as simply "a fig leaf by authorities to cover over their scandal" — to justify the coup and the crackdown, pointing out that no police have been investigated for killing protesters. "They are going after their main political opponent," he told The Associated Press last week.

On Friday, the Brotherhood legal team said Gharib left the country for security reasons and has been replaced by another lawyer. Dozens of Brotherhood lawyers have already been detained. Gharib, himself tried under previous administrations, represented the Brotherhood's jailed top leader Mohammed Badie and other senior members.

Some 2,000 high- and middle-ranking Brotherhood figures have been detained, and Gharib estimated another 6,000 rank-and-file members and supporters are also in custody, being questioned for material to use against the leadership. Among the biggest figures in custody are Morsi, Badie and his deputy Khairat el-Shater, and almost half the group's main leadership council and many of its former parliament members. Rights lawyers say they are struggling to keep track, given the high numbers jailed and prosecutors who are keeping a tight lid on information.

Even rights lawyers who see a strong basis for prosecuting Brotherhood figures over violence and abuses of power expressed concern over the scope of the projected trials. Rights advocates have called for a thorough program of transitional justice to address abuses from the time of autocrat Hosni Mubarak and through the past 2 ½ years of Egypt's turmoil since his ouster — which would also mean trying police and military officials for killing protesters and other rights violations.

Instead, they fear unfair trials with shoddy evidence will be used for the political aim of undermining the Brotherhood.

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FILE - This image Tuesday, Aug. 20, 2013 file photo released by Egypt's Interior Ministry shows Moha …

"They want revenge," Amr Imam, a rights lawyer with the Hesham Mubarak Legal Center, said of the current authorities. "The rights of not only the Brotherhood, but many other Egyptians, will be lost because of arbitrary procedures."

The Brotherhood, which despite being illegal grew in recent decades to become Egypt's best organized political group, leaped to power in elections after Mubarak's 2011 ouster. The presidency of Morsi, a Brotherhood member who became Egypt's first freely elected leader, prompted a massive backlash from many in the public who saw the group as trying to monopolize power and impose its vision on the country.

The military removed Morsi on July 3 after protests by millions against him. The group says the military has crushed the country's fledgling democracy and will bring back Mubarak-style rule.

During its 85-year history, the Muslim Brotherhood has seen frequent waves of arrests. But this time is different.

Under Mubarak, Brotherhood leaders at times were jailed under emergency laws on accusations of belonging to a banned group, but were only occasionally brought to trial. Instead, their detentions and releases were part of a political game, used by the regime to wrest concessions from the group, particularly ahead of elections.

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FILE - In this Sunday, Oct. 6, 2013 file photo, Egyptian security forces detain a wounded suspected …

"We used to play chess with the previous regime," said Gharib. "Now it is straight out crushing."

Gharib also noted another difference — in the past 30 years under Mubarak, there was no attempt to associate the group with violence.

The major exception was a high-profile military trial of Brotherhood figures under Mubarak, in 2008, when 25 members, including senior leaders and financiers, were sentenced to up to 10 years for money laundering and terrorism. The case was initiated after masked Brotherhood students held a militia-style demonstration in Cairo, raising an investigation into whether the Brotherhood had resurrected its military wing.

A prosecution official said nine or 10 cases are so far being prepared on incitement and other charges. Investigators are citing recordings of conversations among leaders plotting violence, testimonies by victims of violence and weapons seized at two pro-Morsi protest camps, according to the official, who spoke to AP on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to talk to the press.

Morsi's trial begins on Nov. 4, with 14 other Brotherhood figures as co-defendants. Their case is rooted in an attack by Brotherhood supporters on an anti-Morsi protest camp outside his palace in December, during his presidency, which sparked clashes that left 10 dead. Morsi is accused of inciting his followers to attack the protesters, a charge that could carry the death penalty.

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FILE - In this Sunday, Oct. 6, 2013 file photo, Egyptian security forces detain suspected supporters …

Morsi has been held in a secret military detention with no access to his lawyers and has refused to cooperate with investigators. In leaked reports of his interrogations, Morsi insisted he is the legitimate leader of the country. His family called the trial and accusations "laughable."

The trial of Brotherhood leader Badie began in August. He, his predecessor Mahdi Akef and senior deputies are charged with incitement in connection to an incident days before Morsi's ouster, when Brotherhood members opened fire on anti-Morsi protesters outside the Brotherhood's Cairo headquarters, allegedly intent on storming it. At least eight people were killed.

In interrogation transcripts leaked to the press, the 85-year-old Akef is questioned about testimony by a journalist at the clashes who claimed to have overheard a Brotherhood member talking to Akef on the phone, asking for more weapons.

"These are lies," Akef replied, saying the investigators should be tried for putting together "baseless" accusations, according to the Al-Fagr newspaper.

Badie is also being investigated in a separate case. A few days after Morsi's ouster, his supporters rallied outside a Republican Guard facility where they believed he was detained. Authorities say they tried to break in after Badie and a prominent pro-Brotherhood preacher Safwat Hegazy urged protesters in public speeches to free the ousted president. In the ensuing violence, security forces killed 51 protesters, and a military officer and two policemen were allegedly killed by armed protesters. Hegazy is also jailed now under investigation in the case — and on trial in a separate one.

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FILE- In this Friday, Aug. 16, 2013 file photo, a trampled poster of Egypt's ousted President Mohamm …

Gharib said that top Brotherhood figures were told by prosecutors during questioning that they were accused of trying to topple the regime, which he found ironic because the group considers Morsi to be the legitimate president.

Another Brotherhood lawyer, Osamal el-Helw, said with each new instance of violence around ongoing protests, Brotherhood leaders are added to new investigations, presumably on incitement charges. He said Badie, who has been interrogated in over a dozen cases, will likely face more trials.

The question of how intensely authorities will carry out prosecution and trials is tied up in political considerations, rights lawyers say.

Seif, who represented Brotherhood members in past cases, said he believes the aim is to win criminal sentences that would prevent Brotherhood figures from running in any parliament or presidential elections next year.

Imam believes the flurry of investigations is a pressure tactic to force the Brotherhood to rein in more extremist allies, who have carried out attacks on churches, state facilities and troops in Sinai.

"It is not the Brotherhood that are carrying the weapons," he said. "They are part of an alliance of radical groups who are, and the Brotherhood speaks for them now."

• Fishermen in Peru hunt and butcher dolphins, even though it's illegal
  
• They harvest meat from the animals to use as cheap bait for sharks
• Jim Wickens negotiated passage on a fishing ship to see it for himself
• He and his cameraman witnessed the brutal process from start to finish
  

By JIM WICKENS

PUBLISHED: 22:26 GMT, 17 October 2013 | UPDATED: 12:01 GMT, 19 October 2013

As our vessel cut through the Pacific waves, the dolphins tucked themselves under the bow, taking it in turns to playfully surf the wake.

In any other circumstances, it would have been a beautiful sight. But now I could hardly bear to watch, sick to my stomach at the prospect of what was about to happen.

For up above the dolphins, on the deck of the Peruvian fishing boat, stood its captain, brandishing a razor-sharp harpoon.

He steadied himself, carefully watching the rhythm of the dolphins as they surfaced for air. There was a momentary pause... and then he struck, hurling 30kg of tubular steel into the dolphin’s back as it swam alongside.

As the harpoon sliced through the dolphin’s flesh, a cry of excitement went up from the crew as they celebrated their catch.

Our cameraman Ale and I watched in horror as the rope attached to the harpoon snaked away from the boat.

Fifty yards away, the dolphin’s beak broke the surface as it struggled to escape the line, slowly tiring as it became enveloped in a thick cloud of its own blood.

Two crewmen dragged the rope in, the dolphin still desperately thrashing, but there was to be no miracle escape.

As the dying animal neared the boat, a shiny steel hook was plunged into its head and it was hauled aboard, intestines pouring out of the wound where the harpoon had gone clean through.

The body was still twitching.

A crew member sharpened a knife and casually began to slice off the fins, tossing them into the sea. As the thick puddle of bright red blood widened, he began to peel the skin off its back.

The hunt was over, the dolphin dead, the fishermen had their bait.

With the excitement temporarily at an end, the crew were quickly back into their normal routine.

The salsa music went back on the wheelhouse stereo and a cry from the cook announced that lunch was ready.

A crew member handed me a bowl of soup but as I crouched on the deck next to the skinless carcass of an animal that only a few moments earlier had been effortlessly racing through the ocean waves, I vomited.

I looked at Ale and saw the same look of nauseous horror on his face but we both knew we could say nothing.

We were 100km off shore, surrounded by fishermen who regarded what we had just seen as entirely normal: to say anything about the killing or to be seen portraying any negative emotion could be very dangerous.

But at least we had finally witnessed what we had come to see. We had concrete proof of what, until now, had only been rumour: namely that thousands of dolphins are being killed by Peruvian fishermen who then cut them up and use them as bait for shark fishing.

In marine conservation terms, that’s a double catastrophe, with dolphins — many species of which are protected — being killed to catch sharks, many species of which are now endangered.

It is thought to be the world’s biggest dolphin slaughter and, as an investigative environmental journalist, I was determined to see it for myself.

I secured the bulk of my funding from the Pulitzer Centre for Crisis Reporting, an American organisation, and set about trying to arrange a trip.

After months of patient negotiation, I’d found a skipper willing to take us in exchange for a contribution for fuel and the strict promise of anonymity.

The Peruvian fishermen call dolphins ‘sea-pigs’. It’s a term that does no justice to their elegant movement through the water but, from the fishermen’s point of view, is perhaps a not unreasonable description of an animal that supplies meat that seems tailor-made for shark fishing.

With its rich blood supply, sharks are instantly attracted to fresh dolphin meat and, best of all, unlike other shark bait it’s absolutely free.

So on our third day out of port, my heart sank when I heard the skipper’s excited cry of ‘chenchos!’ - ‘fat pigs’ - and we saw half a dozen dolphins break away from feeding on the anchovy shoals that the nutrient-rich Peruvian waters support in such abundance and race towards the boat to ride our bow-wave.

It should have been a moment to gladden the heart but ours were heavy.

As the captain stood poised with his harpoon, Ale and I leapt into position to film. It wasn’t enough to see the dolphin killed with our own eyes, we had to have a permanent record that we could take back and show to the world.

But there was more killing to come. By dawn the next day, we had arrived at the fishing ground, a thin sliver on the chart where the water temperature was just right for sharks.

The decks had been hosed down and, in the corner, the dolphin carcass lay flensed - stripped of skin - a long section of flesh sliced out of it.

Two crew members were now chopping it into long slivers, tossing each piece into the bait box alongside the expensive salted mackerel that had been bought for the same purpose.

The captain was very honest about the benefits of dolphin bait. ‘Dolphin meat is effective for the blue shark,’ he says. ‘When you cut it, it bleeds a lot. And the blue shark likes fat, and the dolphin is pure fat.

‘I understand that to hunt the dolphin is illegal. But for me, it’s a necessity, I do it to keep my bills down. I can minimise my costs, because the bait for shark is very expensive. The majority of boats that fish shark carry the spear-gun with the spear ready to use.’

He said he would normally kill two to three dolphins per trip and make 12 trips a year but, with 500 shark boats in Peru at the last count, that suggests expert estimates of 10,000 dolphins being killed by Peruvian fishermen every year could be an understatement.

The meat of the sharks is sold to dealers waiting at the harbour and is destined for dinner plates across the world. The shark fins are sent to the Far East for soup.

In the stern of our 40ft fishing boat, two crew-members crouched, carefully skewering dolphin flesh and mackerel on to hooks on the fishing line. A buoy was dropped in the water and, as the boat chugged slowly away from it, the line was fed out behind it.

Two hours later and the hooks — a thousand of them — were spread out in the water. Now all the crew could do was wait and try to get some sleep, knowing they had a busy night ahead of them.

As the sun set and the temperature dropped, they donned water-proofs and wellington boots and drank soup enriched with maca, an energy-giving Peruvian root.

Then it was time to haul in the catch. Ale and I watched in the darkness, cameras ready, as the fishing line was carefully picked up and coiled by the crew. And then suddenly there was a shout.

The engine slowed and a spotlight shone down into the dark waters below. A svelte, silvery-blue shape gradually appeared in the water.

It was our first shark. Swimming in its normal underwater habitat, the blue shark is a beautiful sight, its tubular torso and wide eyes endowing it with a gentle elegance.

But there was nothing elegant about this one. Hooked and already half-drowned — sharks have to keep swimming to stay alive — it appeared almost drunk, lazily kicking away at the line that now drew it to the boat.

Within seconds, it was hauled over the gunwale and slammed on to the decks, thrashing around. And then the crew fell upon it. One sliced off its entire snout, just in front of its soft white eyes.

Into the gaping hole, a long thin rod was rapidly inserted down the shark’s spinal column and, at last, the thrashing stopped. Its belly was cut open, the insides washed over the side and the shark carcass tossed to the leeward side of the deck.

It would be the first of a dozen sharks the boat would catch, kill and butcher that night.

An hour in, the engine slowed again amid excited shouts from the deck hands. All four men dropped their work to help haul in the line.

Slowly, a vast black shape emerged from the depths. It was a fully-grown thresher shark, a species recently classified as vulnerable to extinction.

Several hundred kilos in weight, its characteristically elongated tail fin alone was 6 ft long.

For a moment or two longer, it was still a beautiful marine creature and then the knives flashed and it joined the growing pile of meat.

But there was worse still to come. Another blue shark was dragged to the surface, still thrashing in the water. When its belly was opened up, dozens of perfectly formed baby sharks slid out, writhing on the deck.

This was too much for Ale and me. Having sat back for days, not interfering and saying nothing, we had to do something. We waved at the crew, pleading with them to put the live baby sharks in the sea.

They laughed — the idea was comical to them — but they did round up the baby sharks and toss them over the side.

The beam of a torch revealed the tiny fishes’ first clumsy movements in the ocean. The odds on them surviving were slim but at least they now had a chance.

It was 5am. Exhausted by the killing and no longer able to trust myself, I left a deck covered in blood, writhing sharks and savage hooks and descended to the cabin. In every sense, I’d had - and seen - enough.

Shutdown showdown widened GOP-tea party rift

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Republicans' clear defeat in the budget-debt brawl has widened the rift between the Grand Old Party and the blossoming tea party movement that helped revive it.

Implored by House Speaker John Boehner to unite and "fight another day" against President Barack Obama and Democrats, Republicans instead intensified attacks on one another, an ominous sign in advance of more difficult policy fights and the 2014 midterm elections.

The tea party movement spawned by the passage of Obama's health care overhaul three years ago put the GOP back in charge of the House and in hot pursuit of the law's repeal. The effort hit a wall this month in the budget and debt fight, but tea partyers promised to keep up the effort.

Whatever the future of the law, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell vowed he would not permit another government shutdown.

"I think we have now fully acquainted our new members with what a losing strategy that is," McConnell said in an interview with The Hill newspaper.

Tea party Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas told ABC News he wouldn't rule out using the tactic again, when the same budget and debt questions come up next year.

"I will continue to do anything I can to stop the train wreck that is Obamacare," Cruz said.

That divide defined the warring Republican factions ahead of the midterm elections, when 35 seats in the Democratic-controlled Senate and all 435 seats in the Republican-dominated House will be on the ballot. In the nearer term, difficult debates over immigration and farm policy loom, along with another round of budget and debt talks.

The animosity only intensified as lawmakers fled Washington this week for a few days' rest.

The Twitterverse crackled with threats, insults and the names of the 27 GOP senators and 87 GOP House members who voted for the leadership's agreement that reopened the government and raised the nation's borrowing limit. Republicans got none of their demands, keeping only the spending cuts they had won in 2011.

Within hours, TeaParty.net tweeted a link to the 114 lawmakers, tagging each as a Republican in name only who should be turned out of office: "Your 2014 #RINO hunting list!"

"We shouldn't have to put up with fake conservatives like Mitch McConnell," read a fundraising letter Thursday from the Tea Party Victory Fund Inc.

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Another group, the Senate Conservatives Fund, announced it was endorsing McConnell's GOP opponent, Louisville, Ky., businessman Matt Bevin.

"Mitch McConnell has the support of the entire Washington establishment and he will do anything to hold on to power," the group, which raised nearly $2 million for tea party candidates in last year's elections, announced. "But if people in Kentucky and all across the country rise up and demand something better, we're confident Matt Bevin can win this race."

The same group pivoted to the Mississippi Senate race, where Republican Thad Cochran is weighing whether to seek a seventh term. Cochran voted for the McConnell-Reid deal, so the Senate Conservatives Fund endorsed a primary opponent, state Sen. Chris McDaniel, a private attorney the group says "will fight to stop Obamacare," ''is not part of the Washington establishment" and "has the courage to stand up to the big spenders in both parties."

There were more tea party targets: Republican Sens. Lindsey Graham in South Carolina and Lamar Alexander in Tennessee also are seeking re-election.

To her Facebook friends, vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin posted: "We're going to shake things up in 2014. Rest well tonight, for soon we must focus on important House and Senate races. Let's start with Kentucky — which happens to be awfully close to South Carolina, Tennessee and Mississippi."

Opponents of the tea party strategy to make "Obamacare" the centerpiece of the budget fight seethed over what they said was an exercise in self destruction. Many clamored for Boehner and McConnell, the nation's highest-ranking Republicans, to impose some discipline, pointing to polls that showed public approval of Congress plummeting to historic lows and that most Americans blamed Republicans for the government shutdown.

A Pew Research Center poll released this week showed public favorability for the Tea Party dropped to its lowest level since driving the Republican takeover of the House in the 2010 elections. An AP-Gfk poll showed that 70 percent now hold unfavorable views of the Tea Party.

And yet, House Republican leaders tried again and again to resolve the standoff the tea party's way — by demanding limits on Obamacare in exchange for reopening the government — until they ran of options and accepted the bipartisan deal.

"When your strategy doesn't work, or your tactic doesn't work, you lose credibility in your conference," said Rep. Aaron Schock, R-Ill., referring to the tea partyers' tactics. "Clearly the leadership followed certain members' tactics, certain members' strategies, and they proved not to be all that successful. So I would hope that we learn from the past."

"I do believe the outside groups have really put us in this position," said Rep. Renee Ellmers, R-N.C., referring to the Heritage Foundation's political campaign arm and other organizations demanding fealty to their ideology. Those groups "have worked in conjunction with members of Congress and with Tea Party groups pushing a strategy that was never going to work."

Tea partyers hold a contrary view. Boehner, they say, solidified his standing as the GOP's leader by holding the line against compromise as long as he did. And the standoff, they add, has increased their movement's clout.

"I think it builds credibility, because I think Democrats did not think that we would press this," said Rep. John Fleming, R-La. "And now they know that we will, and that we might do it again."

Shutdown drama widened GOP-tea party rift

Instead of uniting after their shutdown defeat, the two factions remain in conflict with each other.
Threats and insults

JPMorgan in tentative $13 billion deal with U.S. Justice Department: source

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A sign outside the headquarters of JP Morgan Chase & Co in New York, September 19, 2013. REUTERS/Mike Segar

By Aruna Viswanatha

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - JPMorgan Chase & Co has reached a tentative $13 billion agreement with the U.S. Justice Department to settle government agency investigations into bad mortgage loans the bank sold to investors before the financial crisis, a source said on Saturday.

The tentative deal does not release the bank from criminal liability for some of the mortgages it packaged into bonds and sold to investors, a factor that had been a major sticking point in the discussions, the source said.

As part of the deal, the bank will likely cooperate in criminal inquiries into certain individuals involved in the conduct at issue, the source, who declined to be identified, said.

Officials at JPMorgan and the Justice Department declined to comment.

Another source close to the discussions characterized a deal as likely, but cautioned that parts of the agreement are still being hammered out, and the settlement could conceivably fall apart.

The record settlement could help resolve many of the legal troubles the New York bank is facing. Earlier this month JPMorgan disclosed it had stockpiled $23 billion in reserves for settlements and other legal expenses to help cover the myriad investigations into its conduct before and after the financial crisis.

The deal is being hammered out by some of the most senior officials at the Department of Justice and the largest U.S. bank. Attorney General Eric Holder and JPMorgan Chief Executive Jamie Dimon spoke on the phone on Friday night to finalize the broad outlines of the broad deal, the first source said.

The bank's general counsel Stephen Cutler and Associate Attorney General Tony West are negotiating a statement of facts that will be part of a final agreement, the source said.

Long considered one of the best-managed banks, JPMorgan has stumbled in recent years, with run-ins with multiple federal regulators as well as authorities in several states and foreign countries over issues ranging from multibillion-dollar trading losses and poor risk controls to probes into whether it manipulated a power market.

In September, as the Justice Department prepared to sue the bank over mortgage securities that the bank sold in the run-up to the financial crisis, JPMorgan tried to reach a broader settlement with DOJ and other federal and state agencies to resolve claims over its mortgage-related liabilities stemming from the bust in house prices.

Dimon went to Washington to meet with Holder on September 25, and discussed an $11 billion settlement at that point.

Some of the problems relate to mortgage bank Washington Mutual and investment bank Bear Stearns, two failing firms that JPMorgan took over in 2008.

The bank and the Justice Department have been discussing a broad deal that would resolve not only the inquiry into mortgage bonds it sold to investors between 2005 to 2007 that were backed by subprime and other risky residential mortgages, but also similar lawsuits from the Federal Housing Finance Agency, the National Credit Union Administration, the state of New York and others.

The broader settlement is a product of a government working group created nearly two years ago to investigate misconduct in the residential mortgage-backed securities market that contributed to the financial crisis. Officials from the Justice Department, the New York Attorney General and others helped to lead the group.

Reuters reported late Friday that JPMorgan and FHFA had reached a tentative $4 billion deal. That agreement is expected to be part of the larger $13 billion settlement.

(additional reporting by David Henry and Karen Freifeld in New York)

(Reporting by Aruna Viswanatha; Editing by Doina Chiacu and Gunna Dickson)

Source: JPMorgan agrees to $13 billion settlement

The banking giant's massive fine won't mean it's out of the woods in regard to the 2008 financial crisis.
Potential criminal liability

United Nations (United States) (AFP) - The UN's humanitarian chief called Saturday for a cessation of hostilities in a Damascus suburb beseiged for months by Syrian army, so that food and vital medical aid can be delivered.

Although some 3,000 people were evacuated last week, "the same number or more remain trapped," the UN's Valerie Amos said in a statement, noting that continued shelling and fighting hinder aid workers from reaching the needy in the town of Moadamiyet al-Sham.

"I call on all parties to agree an immediate pause in hostilities in Moadamiyet to allow humanitarian agencies unhindered access to evacuate the remaining civilians and deliver life-saving treatment and supplies," Amos said.

She emphasized that Moadamiyet al-Sham is not the only town under seige.

"Thousands of families also remain trapped in other locations across Syria, for example in Nubil, Zahra, old Aleppo town, old Homs town and Hassakeh," she said.

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A Free Syrian Army fighter fires an anti-tank missile towards what the FSA said were locations contr …

"How many more children, women and men will needlessly lose their lives? The humanitarian community has stressed time and time again that people must not be denied life-saving help and that the fighting has to stop," Amos said.

Moadamiyet al-Sham, a suburb southwest of the capital, is largely controlled by rebels seeking the overthrow of the government, although pockets remain under regime control.

The army has laid siege to the area for months, and bombed it near-daily, with the opposition accusing it of creating a situation in which residents are starving to death.

At the end of August, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an NGO, reported two children aged three and seven had died from a disease related to malnutrition.

The group said the siege, which began in April, had prevented doctors from bringing in food or medicine to save the children.

It was also one of the neighborhoods on the outskirts of Damascus hit in an August 21 sarin gas attack the opposition blamed on the regime and that reportedly killed hundreds.

But the government accuses the opposition of holding residents of the district hostage.