The fighting is part of the escalating violence in a Syrian civil war that the United Nations estimates has killed more than 60,000 people since the revolt against President Bashar Assad began in March 2011.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said rebels stormed parts of the Taftanaz air base in the northwestern province of Idlib before withdrawing. The state-run SANA news agency said government forces protecting the base "repelled the terrorists' attempt to attack the airport" and inflicted heavy losses. The Syrian regime routinely refers to rebel forces as "terrorists."

The Observatory said rebels resumed their assault early Thursday in an attempt to capture the base, which has resisted several opposition efforts to take the facility in recent months.

The rebels have been pursuing a strategy of attacking airports and military airfields, targeting five air bases in Idlib and the nearby province of Aleppo, trying to chip away at the government's air power, which poses the biggest obstacle to advances by opposition fighters.

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Human rights activists in Syria had put the death toll at around 45,000 according to the AP. In 2012 alone, according to the Syrian Network for Human Rights, 36,332 civilians were killed. The network specifically decried the Assad regimes record for killing civilians women and children:

The proportion of women and children to the total number of victims is 5.2 which is a conclusive  evidence that the Syrian government is deliberately targeting civilians as the internationally recognized ratio in the case of regular warfare is 2%. The Syrian government has killed more than double that percentage and in some months the percentage was more than three times that benchmark.

Last week the U.N.-Arab League envoy warned that 2013 could see over 100,000 more deaths in Syria if the civil war does not come to an end.

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American James Foley, 39, was last seen on Nov. 22 in Idlib Province. Idlib has been the scene of heavy fighting in recent months between Syrian rebels and government forces.

Richard Engel, the chief foreign affairs correspondent for NBC News, and three members of his team, went missing in the same region in December. They were freed after their captors ran into a checkpoint manned by Ahrar Al Sham, a Syrian rebel group. Engel said a firefight erupted and two captors were killed. The rebels then escorted Engel and his team to the border with Turkey.

Little is known about the group that kidnapped Engel and his team. And it remains unclear if the same group is responsible for taking James.

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Lakhdar Brahimi, the U.N.-Arab League envoy for the Syrian crisis, told reporters in Cairo that if the crisis continues Syria will not be divided into states "like what happened in Yugoslavia" but will face "Somalization, which means warlords, and the Syrian people will be persecuted by those who control their fate."

Syrian rebels are fighting a 21-month-old revolt against President Bashar Assad's regime. Activists say more than 40,000 people have been killed in the crisis, which began with pro-democracy protests but has morphed into a civil war.

Since starting his job in September, Brahimi has sought to advance an international plan, reached in Geneva six months ago, that calls for an open-ended cease-fire between rebels and government troops and the formation of a transitional government to run the country until elections can be held.

Over the past week Brahimi went to Damascus where he met Assad then flew to Moscow, one of Syria's closest international allies, where he discussed ways of ending the country's crisis.

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[Assad's forces] fired at least two Iranian-made, short-range ballistic missiles in what appears to be an effort to more precisely target Syrian rebels ... The Fateh A-110 missiles are more accurate than the older Scud variants that Syrian government forces have used in recent weeks.

Although these short-range missile attacks would not be able to reach the Turkish border, where NATO is sending U.S., German and Dutch Patriot missile batteries to protect, concern over ballistic missiles accounts for the beefing up of border defenses.

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Of course, it’s impossible to say with certainty which actions "Anonymous" actually pulled off, since its membership is ill-defined and anyone can claim association, not to mention that sometimes Anonymous hacktivists act alone or as part of a subgroup.  Even when Anonymous has put out one of its quintessential videos claiming responsibility for a hack or DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service—shutting down a website by flooding it with requests) attack, it hasn’t always turned out to be true.

Given that, below are Anonymous’ “Top 20” for 2012. With its widening arsenal and focus, one can only imagine what these Internet denizens have in store for 2013.

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“It is good to be here,” Engel said, broadcasting from Turkey. “I’m very happy that we’re able to do this live shot this morning.”

"We weren't physically beaten or tortured. It was a lot of psychological torture, threats of being killed," Engel continued. "They made us choose which one of us would be shot first and when we refused there were mock shootings. They pretended to shoot [NBC producer Ghazi Balkiz] several times."

Watch:

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In a statement, the network announced: “After being kidnapped and held for five days inside Syria by an unknown group, NBC News Chief Foreign Correspondent Richard Engel and his production crew members have been freed unharmed. We are pleased to report they are safely out of the country.

Engel and his crew are live on the "Today" show now; we will update with more details.

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The announcement comes just days after Syria allegedly launched Scud missiles from Damascus at rebels in the north. Syria has denied using Scud rockets.

But U.S. officials claimed one of the missiles came close to the Syrian border with Turkey, reported CNN.

The move to send the reinforcements was approved by U.S Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, who is currently en route to Turkey.

The plan calls for two Patriot missile batteries that can hit planes and missiles emanating from Syria, and 400 soldiers to operate them.

Panetta was frank about the possible reaction from Damascus: "We can't spend a lot of time worrying about whether that pisses off Syria," he told CNN.

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Russia's explanation - that the official was characterizing the opinion of the Syrian opposition rather than stating Russia's position - did not jibe with the words of Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov, who was quoted by all three leading Russian news agencies as saying Thursday: "there is a trend for the government to progressively lose control over an increasing part of the territory," and adding that "an opposition victory can't be excluded."

The Foreign Ministry insisted in a statement Friday that Bogdanov was referring only to the claims of the "Syrian opposition and its foreign sponsors forecasting their quick victory over the regime in Damascus."

"In that context, Bogdanov again confirmed Russia's principled stance that a political settlement in Syria has no alternative," the ministry's spokesman, Alexander Lukashevich, said in the statement.

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Pentagon press secretary George Little said Defense Secretary Leon Panetta signed a deployment order Friday en route to Turkey from Afghanistan.

The order calls for 400 US soldiers to operate two batteries of Patriots at undisclosed locations in Turkey, Little told reporters flying with Panetta.

Turkey is a founding member of NATO and requested that the alliance provide Patriots. They will be sent by NATO members Germany and the Netherlands as well as the U.S. for an undetermined period.

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Scuds are ballistic missiles first used by the Soviets during the Cold War. They are extremely deadly and can carry warheads.

The US warning comes amid growing concern Assad will resort to extreme measures — such as chemical weapons — in the face of a stubborn armed rebellion.

One US official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told NYT the "total is number is probably north of six now,” adding that the regime was targeting rebel-held areas.

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Shows, he said, the increasing desperation of Mr. Assad, since Scuds are primarily defensive weapons, being used by the government offensively against a counterinsurgency.

“Using Scuds to target tanks or military bases is one thing,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. “Using them to target rebels hiding in playgrounds at schools is something else.”

On Tuesday anti-government activists in Damascus said "Regime forces are firing land missiles that are capable of carrying chemical warheads." This is significant because Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said that Syria's use of chemical weapons in a civil war would violate a "red line."

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They have launched a concerted campaign against military bases and the international airport, within an arc of opposition strongholds that now encircle the capital.

After recent rebel attacks on military checkpoints and bases along the 15-mile highway between southwest Damascus and the international airport prompted the airport’s two-day closure, authorities last week insisted Syria’s only international commercial airline hub had reopened.

But a GlobalPost reporter trying to drive on the highway toward the airport was stopped by Syrian soldiers who said the road was closed because they could not guarantee safe passage.

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He is reported to have sent his deputy foreign minister, Faisal al-Miqdad, on a trip to Cuba, Ecuador and Venezuela to sound out their respective leaders about the possibility of asylum.

All three countries have left-wing governments that are, to varying degrees and in different ways, antagonistic toward the US.

The most likely destination for the Syrian despot would appear to be Venezuela. Its President Hugo Chavez recently described Assad as his country’s “legitimate” leader.

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Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta followed up the reports Thursday, noting "we are very concerned that as the opposition advances particularly on Damascus that the regime might very well consider the use of chemical weapons."

Chemical weapons have for the U.S. been an expressed "red line" in regards to Syria. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stated previously that should Assad deploy chemical weapons against his people, "suffice to say we are certainly planning to take action.”

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Gunmen loyal to opposite sides in Syria's civil war battled Wednesday in the streets of the Lebanese city of Tripoli. The fighting has killed six people and wounded nearly 60 since Monday, security officials said.

The bloodshed is a sign of just how vulnerable Lebanon is to getting sucked into the Syrian crisis. The countries share a porous border and a complex web of political and sectarian ties that is easily enflamed.

Among the 17 Lebanese men who turned up dead in Syria last week were Bilal al-Ghoul and his childhood friend, Malek Haj Deeb, both 20. Malek's older brother, Jihad, said the two men sympathized with the rebellion, but they were not fighters.

"Malek used to see the videos of dead Syrians and cry," Jihad Haj Deeb told The Associated Press in Tripoli, as gunfire and explosions echoed near his home in the poor neighborhood of Mankoubeen. "He used to say, `May Bashar fall soon, God willing.'"

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The alliance's 28 members decided to limit use of Patriots solely for the defensive purpose of warding off the mortar rounds and shells from Syria that have already killed five Turks. But the announcement also appeared to be a message to Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime at a time when Washington and other governments fear Syria may be readying its chemical weapons stockpiles for possible use.

"We stand with Turkey in the spirit of strong solidarity," NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen told reporters. "To anyone who would want to attack Turkey, we say, `Don't even think about it!'"

Fogh Rasmussen stressed that the deployment of the Patriot systems - which includes missiles, radar and other elements - wouldn't be a first step toward a no-fly zone over parts of Syria or any offensive operation against the Arab state.

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