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Summary
Welcome to Middle East Live. As we announced yesterday we are changing the format of this blog.
It will still be the place where you can catch up with the latest news and post links to interesting blogs, articles and video clips from the region. We will continue to put together a daily roundup of the main news each morning, and will liveblog events when there are major developments in the region.
But on quieter news days, Middle East Live will primarily be a format for readers to share links and offer commentary on developments, as well as continue the feisty discussion that has been a feature of the blog since it was launched more than two years ago.
With your help the Guardian has been liveblogging events in the Middle East since the fall of Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali in Tunisia sparked the Arab spring in January 2011. Every weekday since, and some weekends too, we have carried minute-by-minute updates on a turbulent and dramatic period in the region. Among other things the blog has tracked the fall of Hosni Mubarak in Egypt; the war in Libya and the killing of Muammar Gaddafi; and the increasingly violent civil war in Syria.
The region remains very turbulent, but the gradual incremental developments seen in Syria in particular can no longer justify the resources involved in tracking events quite so closely.
But please continue to post your comments below on any of the day's stories from the Middle East.
Here's a roundup of the latest developments:
Syria
• Syria's main armed opposition group, the Free Syrian Army (FSA), is losing fighters and capabilities to Jabhat al-Nusra, an Islamist organisation with links to al-Qaida that is emerging as the best-equipped, financed and motivated force fighting Bashar al-Assad's regime. Evidence of the growing strength of al-Nusra, gathered from Guardian interviews with FSA commanders across Syria, underlines the dilemma for the US, Britain and other governments as they ponder the question of arming anti-Assad rebels.
• Syrian opposition leaders have reacted sceptically to a joint call by the US and Russia for an international conference to discuss the creation of a transitional government in Damascus as a way of ending the crisis. The opposition coalition insisted that any conference should begin with the removal of Assad from power.
Now Washington seems to have softened its position to the extent of leaving Assad's future up to the outcome of negotiations and whatever the Syrians themselves decide, which has long been the Russian position.
That compromise offers a chance of pulling back from the abyss into which everyone is already staring, if not already sliding.
The alternative is a scenario which does not serve the interests of either of the big powers, and it is hard to see how it serves anybody else's.
Which is not to say that it will not happen.
Democrats in the US Congress have introduced "Syrian stabilisation" legislation that would empower the administration to provide lethal aid to the Syrian opposition - weaponry that could tilt the balance on the ground, which would be the purpose.
But [US Secretary of State John] Kerry made it clear that that scenario would become irrelevant if there is a serious settlement process.
The bottom line is that the US administration does not want the rebels to win.
Its strategy was to tilt the battlefield sufficiently that the government - or the Alawite leadership - came under enough pressure to jettison the ruling circle and agree to regime change through an orderly transition.
But that was not happening, and the risk attendant on beefing up support for the rebels and prolonging the conflict is that it could lead to an uncontrolled regime collapse and chaos, with all kinds of radical groups possibly moving in.
• Israel has warned the US that Russia is about to sell advanced ground-to-air missile systems to Syria, in a deal that would significantly boost the regime's ability to stave off intervention in its civil war, according to the Wall Street Journal. US officials told the paper they are analysing the information Israel provided about the suspected sale of S-300 missile batteries to Syria, but wouldn't comment on whether they believed such a transfer was near.
• Syria's Internet and phone lines started working again on Wednesday evening, residents said, after a day-long blackout left much of the population in the midst of civil war cut off from the outside world. Activists called the Internet outage an intentional move to aid countrywide military operations.
Libya
• Diplomat Gregory Hicks has accused the State department of a cover-up following last September's deadly attack on the consulate in Benghazi in evidence to congress that could harm Hillary Clinton's White House bid. Hicks said he was actively discouraged by officials from asking awkward questions about why other top Clinton aides, including the UN ambassador Susan Rice, initially blamed the attack on a spontaneous protest that got out of control. He described that briefing he described as "jaw-dropping, embarrassing and stunning".
Turkey
• The Kurdistan Workers' party (PKK) has begun the withdrawal of its fighters from Turkish territory, according to a Kurdish party leader, as part of peace negotiations that could spell the end to one of the world's longest-running ethnic conflicts. Gultan Kisanak, joint leader of the Peace and Democracy party, said a first group of rebel fighters started to move towards the border with Iraq on Wednesday.
Israel
• The celebrated physicist Stephen Hawking has become embroiled in a deepening furore over his decision to boycott a prestigious conference in Israel in protest over the state's occupation of Palestine. His decision to cancel an appearance at a conference sponsored by Israel's president, Shimon Peres, has been denounced by prominent Israelis and welcomed by pro-Palestinian campaigners. It has also entangled Cambridge University – Hawking's academic base since 1975 – which initially claimed the scientist's withdrawal was on medical grounds, before conceding a political motivation.
Iran
• EA World View has a useful animated beginners guide to the Iranian elections. It divides the likely candidates into seven factions.