IDLIB, Syria — Syria’s conflict heated up Tuesday with rebels battling the regime’s elite Republican Guard forces in the suburbs of the capital, Damascus, as Turkey’s prime minister threatened to defend his country’s territory from Syrian military encroachments in response to the nation’s downing of a Turkish war plane Friday.
The increasingly fierce fighting prompted Syrian President Bashar Assad to declare that the country is “in a state of war,” while the White House remarked that Mr. Assad has been slowly “losing his grip over the country” during the 16-month-old Arab Spring uprising against the regime.
