BERLIN — Syrian troops stormed a rebel-held area on the Mediterranean coast Wednesday, driving out opposition fighters and retaking the Haffa region as world leaders debated the mounting violence there and mulled how to quell it.
France’s foreign minister said Syria has descended into “civil war,” a day after the United Nations' peacekeeping chief employed the same term to describe the ongoing strife there. But both Syria’s regime and the rebels rejected the notion that a civil war is occurring.
