Frustrated Annan quits as Syria peace envoy

U.N.-Arab League mediator Kofi Annan addresses a news conference at the United Nations in Geneva August 2, 2012. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse

ALEPPO, Syria (Reuters) - Former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan is quitting as international peace envoy for Syria in the face of an armed rebellion against President Bashar al-Assad whose violence shows no sign of abating after 17 months of strife.

As battles raged on Thursday in Syria's second city Aleppo between rebel fighters and government forces using war planes and artillery, U.N. Secretary Ban Ki-moon announced in New York that Annan had said he would go at the end of the month.

"Kofi Annan deserves our profound admiration for the selfless way in which he has put his formidable skills and prestige to this most difficult and potentially thankless of assignments," Ban said. Talks were under way to find a successor.

Annan's mission, centered on an April ceasefire that never took hold, has looked irrelevant as fighting has intensified in Damascusand Aleppo.

A clearly frustrated Annan blamed "finger pointing and name calling" at the U.N. Security Council for his decision to quit.

In Syria, the fight for Aleppo, the latest battlefield, intensified. Rebels turned the gun of a captured tank against government forces on Thursday, shelling a military airbase used by war planes in the battle for Aleppo.

President Bashar al-Assad's troops meanwhile bombarded the strategic Salaheddine district in Aleppo itself with tank and artillery fire supported by combat aircraft while rebels tried to consolidate their hold on areas they have seized.

In the capital Damascus, troops overran a suburb on Wednesday and killed at least 35 people, mostly unarmed civilians, residents and activist organizations said.

The fighting for Syria's two biggest cities highlights the country's rapid slide into full-scale civil war 17 months on from the peaceful street protests that marked the start of the anti-Assad uprising.

World powers have watched with mounting concern as diplomatic efforts to find a negotiated solution have faltered and violence that has already claimed an estimated 18,000 lives worsens.

About 60 people were killed in Syria on Thursday, 43 of them civilians, according to the opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The rebels' morale was boosted when they turned a government tank's gun on the Menakh airfield 35 km (22 miles) north of Aleppo - a possible staging post for army reinforcements and a base for war planes and helicopter gunships.

"We hit the airport using a tank that we captured from the Assad army. We attacked the airport a few times but we have decided to retreat at this time," a rebel fighter named Abu Ali told Reuters.

Other rebel sources said they had pulled back after coming under fire from MiG warplanes from the airport.

The lightly armed insurgents are battling a well-equipped army that has overwhelming superiority on paper. But the rebels have managed to capture some tanks and heavy weapons and their ranks are swelled by army defectors.

Rebel fighters said they had used improvised explosives in an attack on the Nejrab international airport on the outskirts of Aleppo but there were no reports of serious damage.

Reuters correspondents heard heavy weapons fire on Thursday morning from Salaheddine in southwest Aleppo, a gateway to the city of 2.5 million people that has been fought over for the past week.

Heavily armed government troops are trying to drive a force of a few thousand rebel fighters from the city in battle whose outcome could be a turning point in the conflict.

Although government forces have made concerted efforts to take Salaheddine, a full-out assault on the city as a whole has yet to take place.

Mobile phone connections have been cut since Wednesday evening, leading to speculation among residents that an increase in military action might be imminent.

The rebels are consolidating areas they control in Aleppo, attacking police posts and minor military installations with some success. They claim to have seized three police stations this week.

NEW ATROCITIES ALLEGED

In Damascus, still a government stronghold but a scene of combat in the past two weeks, government troops faced new accusations of atrocities after they overran a suburb on Wednesday.

"When the streets were clear we found the bodies of at least 35 men," a resident, who gave his name as Fares, said by phone from Jdeidet Artouz, southwest of Damascus.

"Almost all of them were executed with bullets to their face, head and neck in homes, gardens and basements."

Syrian state television said "dozens of terrorists and mercenaries surrendered or were killed" when the army raided Jdeidet Artouz and its surrounding farmlands.

In a rallying cry to his troops on Wednesday, Assad said their battle against rebels would decide Syria's fate.

But his call to arms, in a written statement, gave no clues to his whereabouts two weeks after a bomb attack on his inner circle.

Assad, who succeeded his late father Hafez 11 years ago to perpetuate the family's rule of Syria, has not spoken in public since the bombing in Damascus killed four of his close security aides, although he has appeared in recorded clips on television.

His low public profile has fuelled speculation about his grip on power since the attack in which his brother-in-law died.

FOOD RUNNING SHORT

The fighting in Salaheddine district, part of a rebel-held arc stretching to the northeast of Aleppo, has left neither side in full control.

On al-Sharqeya Street, residents and shop owners looked in awe at the damage. Some searched through what was left of their buildings - huge piles of concrete and twisted metal.

"I saw death before my eyes," said Abu Ahmed as he abandoned his home. "I was hiding in the alleyway of my building when I heard the whiz of the artillery. Look at my street now."

They said the damage was caused by helicopter fire targeting a rebel brigade based in a school. It missed the school and hit the residential buildings instead.

"This dog Assad and his men are so blind they can't even target a brigade properly," said Abu Ahmed, waving a plastic bag with his meager belongings inside.

State television said on Wednesday the army was pursuing remaining "terrorists" in one Aleppo district and had killed several, including foreign Arab fighters.

Some foreign fighters, including militant Islamists, have joined the battle against Assad, who accuses outside powers of financing and arming the insurgents.

Aleppo had long stayed aloof from the uprising but many of its 2.5 million residents are now caught up in battle zones, facing shortages of food, fuel, water and cooking gas. Thousands have fled and hospitals and makeshift clinics can barely cope with casualties after more than a week of combat.

"The humanitarian situation is deteriorating in Aleppo and food needs are growing rapidly," said the World Food Programme, announcing plans to send emergency food supplies for up 28,000 people.

The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation said up to three million Syrians are likely to need food and other aid in the next 12 months because the conflict has prevented farmers from harvesting their crops.

In New York, the U.N. General Assembly was expected to vote on Thursday on a resolution drafted by Saudi Arabia, which is openly supporting the rebel forces seeking to oust Assad.

Russia, which has consistently supported Syria at the United Nations, said it would not back the resolution because the document was unbalanced and would encourage rebels to keep fighting the government.

(Additional reporting by Erika Solomon in Aleppo, Dominic Evans in Beirut, Gabriela Baczynska in Moscow; Writing by Giles Elgood; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

Obama authorized secret support for Syrian rebels

By Mark Hosenball | Reuters

Syrian rebel fighters pose for a picture in Hama July 20, 2012. REUTERS/Shaam News Network/Handout

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama has signed a secret order authorizing U.S. support for rebels seeking to depose Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his government, sources familiar with the matter said.

Obama's order, approved earlier this year and known as an intelligence "finding," broadly permits the CIA and other U.S. agencies to provide support that could help the rebels oust Assad.

This and other developments signal a shift toward growing, albeit still circumscribed, support for Assad's armed opponents - a shift that intensified following last month's failure of the U.N. Security Council to agree on tougher sanctions against the Damascus government.

The White House is for now apparently stopping short of giving the rebels lethal weapons, even as some U.S. allies do just that.

[Related: On Aleppo's streets, families save what they can]

But U.S. and European officials have said that there have been noticeable improvements in the coherence and effectiveness of Syrian rebel groups in the past few weeks. That represents a significant change in assessments of the rebels by Western officials, who previously characterized Assad's opponents as a disorganized, almost chaotic, rabble.

Precisely when Obama signed the secret intelligence authorization, an action not previously reported, could not be determined.

The full extent of clandestine support that agencies like the CIA might be providing also is unclear.

White House spokesman Tommy Vietor declined comment.

'NERVE CENTER'

A U.S. government source acknowledged that under provisions of the presidential finding, the United States was collaborating with a secret command center operated by Turkey and its allies.

Last week, Reuters reported that, along with Saudi Arabia and Qatar, Turkey had established a secret base near the Syrian border to help direct vital military and communications support to Assad's opponents.

This "nerve center" is in Adana, a city in southern Turkey about 60 miles from the Syrian border, which is also home to Incirlik, a U.S. air base where U.S. military and intelligence agencies maintain a substantial presence.

[Also read: Black belt Putin tackles Cameron on Syria]

Turkey's moderate Islamist government has been demanding Assad's departure with growing vehemence. Turkish authorities are said by current and former U.S. government officials to be increasingly involved in providing Syrian rebels with training and possibly equipment.

European government sources said wealthy families in Saudi Arabia and Qatar were providing significant financing to the rebels. Senior officials of the Saudi and Qatari governments have publicly called for Assad's departure.

On Tuesday, NBC News reported that the Free Syrian Army had obtained nearly two dozen surface-to-air missiles, weapons that could be used against Assad's helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft. Syrian government armed forces have employed such air power more extensively in recent days.

NBC said the shoulder-fired missiles, also known as MANPADs, had been delivered to the rebels via Turkey.

On Wednesday, however, Bassam al-Dada, a political adviser to the Free Syrian Army, denied the NBC report, telling the Arabic-language TV network Al-Arabiya that the group had "not obtained any such weapons at all." U.S. government sources said they could not confirm the MANPADs deliveries, but could not rule them out either.

Current and former U.S. and European officials previously said that weapons supplies, which were being organized and financed by Qatar and Saudi Arabia, were largely limited to guns and a limited number of anti-tank weapons, such as bazookas.

[Related: Battle for Aleppo enters third week as Syrian rebels hold on]

Indications are that U.S. agencies have not been involved in providing weapons to Assad's opponents. In order to do so, Obama would have to approve a supplement, known as a "memorandum of notification, to his initial broad intelligence finding.

Further such memoranda would have to be signed by Obama to authorize other specific clandestine operations to support Syrian rebels.

Reuters first reported last week that the White House had crafted a directive authorizing greater U.S. covert assistance to Syrian rebels. It was unclear at that time whether Obama had signed it.

OVERT SUPPORT

Separately from the president's secret order, the Obama administration has stated publicly that it is providing some backing for Assad's opponents.

The State Department said on Wednesday the U.S. government had set aside a total of $25 million for "non-lethal" assistance to the Syrian opposition. A U.S. official said that was mostly for communications equipment, including encrypted radios.

The State Department also says the United States has set aside $64 million in humanitarian assistance for the Syrian people, including contributions to the World Food Program, the International Committee of the Red Cross and other aid agencies.

Also on Wednesday, the U.S. Treasury confirmed it had granted authorization to the Syrian Support Group, Washington representative of one of the most active rebel factions, the Free Syrian Army, to conduct financial transactions on the rebel group's behalf. The authorization was first reported on Friday by Al-Monitor, a Middle East news and commentary website.

Last year, when rebels began organizing themselves to challenge the rule of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, Obama also signed an initial "finding" broadly authorizing secret U.S. backing for them. But the president moved cautiously in authorizing specific measures to support them.

Some U.S. lawmakers, such as Republican Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham, have criticized Obama for moving too slowly to assist the rebels and have suggested the U.S. government become directly involved in arming Assad's opponents.

Other lawmakers have suggested caution, saying too little is known about the many rebel groups.

Recent news reports from the region have suggested that the influence and numbers of Islamist militants, some of them connected to al Qaeda or its affiliates, have been growing among Assad's opponents.

U.S. and European officials say that, so far, intelligence agencies do not believe the militants' role in the anti-Assad opposition is dominant.

While U.S. and allied government experts believe that the Syrian rebels have been making some progress against Assad's forces lately, most believe the conflict is nowhere near resolution, and could go on for years.

(Additional reporting by Tabassum Zakaria and Arshad Mohammed; Editing by Warren Strobel and Peter Cooney)

New Law in North Carolina Bans Latest Scientific Predictions of Sea-Level Rise

New Law in North Carolina Bans Latest Scientific Predictions of Sea-Level Rise (ABC News)

A new law in North Carolina will ban the state from basing coastal policies on the latest scientific predictions of how much the sea level will rise, prompting environmentalists to accuse the state of disrespecting climate science.

The law has put the state in the spotlight for what critics have called nearsightedness and climate change denial, but its proponents said the state needed to put a moratorium on predictions of sea level rise until scientific techniques improve.

The law was drafted in response to an estimate by the state's Coastal Resources Commission (CRC) that the sea level will rise by 39 inches in the next century, prompting fears of costlier home insurance and accusations of anti-development alarmism among residents and developers in the state's coastal Outer Banks region.

Democratic Gov. Bev Perdue had until Thursday to act on the bill known as House Bill 819, but she decided to let it become law by doing nothing.

The bill's passage in June triggered nationwide scorn by those who argued that the state was deliberately blinding itself to the effects of climate change. In a segment on the "Colbert Report," comedian Stephen Colbert mocked North Carolina lawmakers' efforts as an attempt to outlaw science.

"If your science gives you a result you don't like, pass a law saying the result is illegal. Problem solved," he joked.

The law, which began as a routine regulation on development permits but quickly grew controversial after the sea-level provision was added, restricts all sea-level predictions used to guide state policies for the next four years to those based on "historical data."

Tom Thompson, president of NC-20, a coastal development group and a key supporter of the law, said the science used to make the 39-inch prediction was flawed, and added that the resources commission failed to consider the economic consequences of preparing the coast for a one-meter rise in sea level, under which up to 2,000 square miles would be threatened.

A projection map showing land along the coast underwater would place the permits of many planned development projects in jeopardy. Numerous new flood zone areas would have to be drawn, new waste treatment plants would have to be built, and roads would have to be elevated. The endeavor would cost the state hundreds of millions of dollars, Thompson said.

"I don't want to say they're being dishonest, but they're pulling data out of their hip pocket that ain't working," he said of the commission panel that issued the prediction, the middle in a range of three predictions.

Thompson, who denies global warming, said the prediction was based on measurements at a point on the North Carolina coast that is unrepresentative of the rest of the coast.

But the costs Thompson decries as wasteful are to the law's opponents a necessary pill the state must swallow if it is going to face up to the challenge of protecting the coast from the effects of climate change.

State Rep. Deborah Ross, a forceful critic of the bill, compared it to burying one's "head in the sand."

"I go to the doctor every year. If I'm not fine, I'd rather know now than in four years," said Ross, a Democrat who represents inland Greensboro, N.C., but owns property on the coast. "This is like going to the doctor and saying you're not going to get a test on a problem."

Its supporters counter that the law does not force the state to close its eyes to reality, but rather to base policy on more than a single model that produced what they believe are extreme results.

Republican State Rep. Pat McElraft, who drafted the law, called the law a "breather" that allows the state to "step back" and continue studying sea -level rise for the next several years with the goal of achieving a more accurate prediction model.

"Most of the environmental side say we're ignoring science, but the bill actually asks for more science," she said. "We're not ignoring science, we're asking for the best science possible, the best extrapolation possible, looking at the historical data also. We just need to make sure that we're getting the proper answers."

As it thrust North Carolina into a national debate about climate politics, the bill became a lightning rod at home.

A spokeswoman for Gov. Perdue said her office received 3,400 emails opposing the bill in the first week after it passed the Republican-controlled state legislature.

According to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), sea level rise along the portion of the East Coast between North Carolina and Massachusetts is accelerating at three to four times the global rate. A USGS report published in the journal Nature Climate Change in June predicted that sea level along the coast of that region, which it called a "hotspot," would rise up to 11.4 inches higher than the global average rise by the end of the 21st century.

The historical political clout wielded by North Carolina's developers has led some critics of the law to accuse legislators backing it to promote those who line the pockets of their campaigns.

The largest industry contributors to McElraft's campaigns have been real estate agents and developers, according to the National Institute on Money in State Politics. Her top contributor since she was elected to the General Assembly in 2007 has been the North Carolina Association of Realtors, followed by the North Carolina Home Builders' Association.

McElraft, who is a former real estate agent and lives on Barrier Island off the coast, denied that campaign contributions ever influence her decisions as a lawmaker, and said her votes have not always favored increased development.

More than simply protecting developers, the new law protects homeowners from an overactive state government that would take away their right to build on their own property, McElraft said. Given an increased projected risk of flooding, insurance companies would likely charge coastal property owners, who already pay higher premiums, a concern Rep. Ross said she shared.

Ross, though, said she would rather pay for a more expensive insurance policy on her coastal home than be uncertain about whether it will be wiped out by the Atlantic Ocean in a few decades.

Gov. Perdue released a statement Thursday that gave a qualified endorsement of the law while urging lawmakers to develop a coherent approach to sea-level rise.

"North Carolina should not ignore science when making public policy decisions. House Bill 819 will become law because it allows local governments to use their own scientific studies to define rates of sea level change," Perdue wrote.

"I urge the General Assembly to revisit this issue and develop an approach that gives state agencies the flexibility to take appropriate action in response to sea level change within the next four years."

Syrian rebels accused of executions, other abuses

This image made from amateur video released by Tabshoor1 and accessed Tuesday, July 31, 2012, purports to show Free Syrian Army soldiers executing Assad loyalists in Aleppo, Syria. A gruesome video apparently showing rebels gunning down Assad loyalists in Aleppo this week has fueled concerns that opposition fighters in Syria are capable of brutality that matches that of the regime they are fighting to topple. (AP Photo/Tabshoor1 via AP video) THE ASSOCIATED PRESS IS UNABLE TO INDEPENDENTLY VERIFY THE AUTHENTICITY, CONTENT, LOCATION OR DATE OF THIS HANDOUT PHOTO

BEIRUT (AP) — The unsteady, hand-held video shows several bloodied prisoners, one in boxer shorts, being led into a noisy outdoor crowd and placed against a wall. The prisoners crouch and seem to avert their eyes as men carrying assault rifles shout slogans and take aim. The gunfire lasts for more than 30 seconds.

The international community has accused Syrian President Bashar Assad's forces of war crimes, but the gunmen in this gruesome video were rebels. Their slogans: "Free Syrian Army Forever!" and "God is Great!"

The video, which surfaced online this week, is fueling concerns that opposition fighters are capable of brutality that matches that of the regime they are seeking to topple — a charge that could badly damage the rebellion's ability to claim the moral high ground in the Syrian civil war.

As rebels gain more territory and a multitude of militias, jihadists and criminals join the fight against Assad, reports of serious human rights abuses committed by armed opposition elements are on the rise.

"As the Free Syrian Army and armed opposition gain more ground control, they are at a crossroad," said Nadim Houry, researcher at the New York based Human Rights Watch.

"They can either go down the route of revenge and killings and replicate the behavior that we have seen by pro-government forces, or take a genuine decision showing that what they're fighting for is not just about revenge but about human rights and justice," he said.

The video sparked international condemnation, including a rare rebuke of rebel tactics from the Obama administration on Thursday.

"This is abhorrent and inconsistent with the type of struggle for freedom and a new Syria that the broad opposition is looking for," State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell told reporters.

Ventrell said the U.S. was encouraged that opposition commanders have condemned abuses, but stressed that "summary executions committed by any party are abhorrent and inconsistent with international law, and those responsible must be held to account."

Separately, Ventrell also criticized what he described as another "massacre" by Assad's forces, this time in the Damascus suburb of Yalda. U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly, said civilians were killed execution-style with gunshots to their heads or necks. They said the killings took place in the victims' homes, basements and gardens.

"It is the Assad regime and Assad's forces that have perpetrated the overwhelming amount of violence in Syria, that are responsible for the overwhelming number of civilian casualties," White House spokesman Jay Carney said.

Assad's regime stands accused of a number of massacres in which hundreds of civilians, including women and children, were killed. The Syrian government blames gunmen driven by a foreign agenda for the killings, but the U.N. and other witnesses have confirmed that at least some were carried out by pro-regime vigilante groups, known as shabiha.

Nevertheless, summary executions committed by rebel forces — albeit on a far smaller scale than the regime's alleged atrocities — put the West in a difficult position as it seeks to persuade Russia andChina to stop blocking tough U.N. action against Assad.

"In the areas they control the rebels bear responsibility for preventing acts of revenge and violence against defenseless persons," German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said Wednesday. "We clearly expect them to be aware of this responsibility."

Representatives of the Free Syrian Army, the Turkey-based umbrella group of Syrian rebels, acknowledged that the executions shown in the video were wrong but said the rebels, unlike Assad's forces, do not attack ordinary civilians.

"The Free Syrian Army does not attack civilians," said spokesman Ahmed Kassaem. "We do not support killings and are not Sadists like the regime."

Activists said those shown killed in the video were not ordinary citizens, but rather Assad loyalists who had killed rebel fighters and intimidated peaceful protesters.

Opposition activists filter most information about the rebels sent outside the country, making it hard to get an accurate picture.

An Associated Press reporter who spent two weeks with rebels in northern Syria in June found little evidence of rebel attacks on civilians, but the rebels were often merciless with regime troops and Assad loyalists. Some boasted freely about sending captured soldiers or loyalists deemed as collaborators "to Cyprus," which the rebels use as a euphemism for execution usually by gunfire.

Human rights groups have long documented reports of extrajudicial executions by people on both sides of the conflict, along with kidnappings, detentions, and widespread torture. As they gain confidence and more territory, however, rebel fighters appear to be increasingly resorting to these tactics.

In another video, posted Thursday, a group of about nine prisoners stand against a wall with their hands behind their backs, captured by rebels after they seized a police station in the embattled city of Aleppo. A rebel fighter says they would be put on trial in front of a Sharia (religious) court made up of "honorable judges."

The authenticity of the videos could not be independently verified.

The Syrian uprising began in March 2011 with largely peaceful protests but has since morphed into an insurgency and civil war. Activists say the conflict has already killed more than 19,000 people — a figure which may soar with reports that foreign jihadists and extremists are streaming into Syria to join the fight against the regime.

The AP reporter counted almost two dozen rebel groups operating with little or no clear command structure. Some were more brutal than others. And there are doubtless countless of others who answer to nobody but themselves.

It is therefore difficult to call anybody to account for the increasingly ugly sectarian nature of Syria's conflict, where an opposition largely based among the country's Sunni majority has risen up against Assad's regime, which is dominated by members of the Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam.

Many Iraqi Shiites, streaming back to their homeland in the past month to escape the war in Syria, reported a rash of attacks against their community, apparently by Sunni rebel gunmen.

In July alone, 23 Iraqi Shiites have been killed in Syria, some of them beheaded, according to the Washington-based Shiite Rights Watch. In one gruesome case, the U.N. said an Iraqi family of seven was killed at gunpoint in their Damascus apartment.

The motives for the attacks on Iraqis are unclear. They may be revenge against any Iraqi because the Shiite-led Iraqi government is seen as siding with Assad. They may also be fueled by sectarian hatreds, with resentment of Syria's Alawite leadership flaring into anger at Shiites.

Nevertheless, the rebels' main targets are not Iraqis, but rather Syrian security forces and regime loyalists. And the main battleground is now the country's largest city, Aleppo, where the new video of summary executions was shot.

According to activists, the executed prisoners were members of the powerful Barri clan, which has long had close ties to the Syrian government. Among them was the clan's leader, Ali Zinelabedine Barri, known as Zeino.

An earlier video shows Zeino sitting on the ground among a group of other prisoners, wearing only black underwear, with blood seeping from above one of his eye. The narrator says the prisoners had been terrorizing residents and earlier in the day killed 15 members of the "Brigade of Unification," the main group of rebel fighters in Aleppo.

A local activist who goes by the name of Abu Adel confirmed the executions, saying they took place on Tuesday at the courtyard of a school after major fighting between the FSA and members of the Barri clan in Aleppo's Bab al-Neyrab district.

The Barri clan, which Adel said numbers in the few thousands, were known to be hard-core regime loyalists and for months had intimidated residents who took part in peaceful anti-government protests. He said they were outlaws, drug dealers and "very well armed."

"Everyone in Aleppo hates them," Adel said, adding that they were given a "trial" before they were gunned down. "I wish it didn't happen, but the rebels are human after all. Sometimes it's hard to control people. We should understand their motives."

In a nod to criticism of rebel brutality, Abdel Razzaq Tlass, leader of the Farouk Brigade of the Free Syrian Army in central Homs province, pledged that his group would comply with Geneva conventions and treat captives according to international law.

"We are revolting against a barbarous regime that always tortured and treated detainees and arrestees in brutal ways that led to the death of many," Tlass said. "That's why we can never adopt the behavior of that very entity that we are revolting against."

Tlass made his pledge in a video that was posted on Monday — a day before the Aleppo executions.

___

Associated Press writers Bradley Klapper and Ben Feller in Washington, Frank Jordans in Berlin and Bassem Mroue in Hatay, Turkey contributed to this report.

Drought diaries: How no water, extreme heat are hurting Americans

The dry Truckee Canal near Teresa Pena-Raney's peach orchard in western Nevada. (Teresa Pena-Raney)

Along the 195-mile Embarras River, a tributary of the Wabash in southeastern Illinois, rancher Jim Gardner worries about his 200 head of Angus cattle.

There's enough hay -- for now. But in July, the cattle started eating winter's food, and this year's drought has already browned his fields. When the rain stopped, the ranch cut the hay for feed. The fields are now barren.

"You have a choice: Spend money to buy hay or spend money on fuel to get hay. We may be looking for hay again in October," Gardner writes in a first-person piece for Yahoo News.

Cattle from Jim Gardner's ranch take shelter in the shade. The dry fields are in stark contrast to 2010, when the fields were vibrant green. (Jim Gardner)

The Embarras flows north to south, meandering through seven Illinois counties that have all been designated as "extreme" drought by the federal government. Like more than 1,500 counties across the country, water along the river is sparse or non-existent.

"The ponds are gone. They're just big craters now. The trees are dropping leaves, diminishing what little shade they have," Gardner writes. "Dust billows up like a giant wave, rising through barren locust trees when the cows head to pasture."

He said that this May he improved two fields by spreading turkey manure on them -- and it worked, sort of. They were last fields to turn brown in the drought.

"For more than 100 years, someone from our family has worked this dry ground," he writes. "Every decision we make carries risk of failure of ending that tradition."

Gardner's story is one of undoubtedly thousands of drought-related anecdotes from across the United States. There's plenty of misery to spread around: On Wednesday, the U.S. Department of Agriculture named 218 additional counties to its tally of natural disaster areas, raising the number of counties nationwide with drought designations to 1,584 in 32 states. And -- as millions of Americans have learned this summer -- if it's not the drought that's problematic, it's the drought's ugly cousin: the heat wave.

Yahoo! News asked Americans -- ranchers, farmers, city-dwellers and anyone impacted -- to share snapshots of living in drought and extreme heat. Below are a handful of their stories.

Teresa Pena-Raney's peach orchard in 2011 in better days. (Teresa Pena-Raney)

Out west, smack in the middle of the Nevada desert, the peach orchard run by Teresa Pena-Raney's family is in jeopardy. She says the drought has been "the story for quite some time" in Hazen, this small community about 50 minutes east of Reno.

"A lack of water and drying trees are an everyday concern for my family. I've watched my parents' dreams shattered over the last year, and I fear no end is in sight." Pena-Raney writes that the orchard, MacKie Farms, has survived because of her family's hard work, dedication and dreams.

But a local water irrigation consortium shut off water from the nearby Truckee Canal, leaving Hazen bone-dry. At one point, water was shut off for eight months, she writes.

"This just doesn't mean agricultural water, either; this meant water to residents' wells too. As our neighbors watched their fields dry up, we watched others go into turmoil with no running household water either.

"I realize the heat, stuck in the high 90s every day, has quite a bit to do with local hardships. And if the politics hadn't hit our farm first, the heat would have. With the water, we can save our farms. In the meantime, I'm just going to keep hauling water in buckets until the last tree is gone."

"Nature is screwing with us," Kayla Stanley writes from Napoleon, a southern Michigan town of about 1,250 residents. "The grass is not only brown and dead. The grass is hard and does not bend; it snaps."

Napoleon is under a severe drought advisory. Stanley writes: "I have to make sure my mother does not throw cigarette butts on the grass in fear we will blow up in a wild raging fire. People in the Midwest are painting their grass green because of water bans. The last time we cut the grass was months ago. No rain = no growing grass."

In Olney, Ill., lumberyard worker Kenneth Zimmerle labors outdoors through 100-degree days, low humidity and no rain -- "maybe three rains since April," he writes.

"Some days I am so exhausted from the heat, I have been going to bed before 8 p.m.," Zimmerle writes. "This triple-digit heat has also affected our business since it is almost impossible to put shingles on in this type of weather. There are only a few hours a day that this can be done."

He says crops -- mainly corn -- in this area of eastern Illinois are dried, dead and worthless. Trees are breaking because there's no water. Flowers and plants are yellowing or dead. He hasn't mowed his lawn in more than three months.

"As we approach the halfway point in summer, there is no sign of relief from the drought," he writes.

The Kay County, Okla., corn crop has been almost destroyed by the drought. The corn field is located between Ponca City and Tonkawa along Highway 60. (Marie Lowe)

While mercury rises in Oklahoma -- it hit 112 in Pawhuska, Okla., on Tuesday -- the water levels have plummeted, bolstering chances of wildfires.

"More than 50 of Oklahoma's 77 counties have issued burn bans and many are pressuring Gov. Mary Fallin to issue a statewide burn ban," Marie Lowe writes from Pawhuska. "The pressure was increased this week after a wildfire destroyed homes in Stillwater."

In Kay County, firefighters responded to seven fires in seven days in July.

In Blackwell, the main water source, the Chikaskia River, was measured at 1.74 feet on July 20 and water restrictions were put into place. On July 31, water measurements were as low as 1.23 feet.

"I noticed several creeks and ponds that are no longer there," Lowe says. "One creek named Lost Creek appears to be literally lost. In Newkirk, a pond located near a casino is no longer there and neither are the cattle that used to drink out of it."

In Iowa, even the weeds are having trouble. Kimberly Schatz, who has lived nearly her whole life in the northeastern farming community of Shell Rock, writes that the dust clouds are so thick that they move through the yard like a fog.

"Looking out at the corn and bean fields surrounding our home, I have watched them deteriorate almost daily over the past couple of weeks," she writes. "The corn field on the south side started browning at the roots more than two weeks ago, but the fields to the west have just started browning at the roots in the last four or five days."

Schatz's vegetable garden is withering: onions dying off, corns and beans producing very little crops and apples rotting as soon as they ripen.

"I have not had to mow our five acres in more than a month because it is all dead," she writes. "We have weeds popping up, but even those are far and few between."

For Rhoda Auerbach, a retired San Antonio resident, it's the drought's little things that are piling up:

"On Monday, I couldn't open the side door because it faces west and the heat is so extreme that it fused the weather stripping to the door frame. I'll have to get that fixed.

"The dog next door was lying under my outdoor faucet praying for a leak.

"I haven't planted anything in my yard for quite a long time; brown plant life would clash with the house.

"The neighborhood cats drink from my pool even though the chlorine makes them ill.

"I opened my car door using gloves so I wouldn't singe my hands. I started the car with the door open to reduce the effect of the hot air blasting from my AC."

But at least there is AC… right?

Not for everyone. In West Berlin, N.J., Laura Cushing's air-conditioning went kaput in July. She's taken to lying down face-first on the kitchen tile, mimicking her cats, whom she believes have figured out the secret to staying cool.

"The air conditioner picked a hell of a time to die," she writes. "A week into record high hot weather, leaving my husband and I soaked in sweat any time we moved more than a few inches in our third-floor apartment. The cats have been camped out on the kitchen tile, so immobile we have to poke them once in a while to make sure they haven't lost one of their nine lives.