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Syria's President Bashar al-Assad and many within his powerful inner circle are Alawites, who make up about 12 percent of the Syrian population.

Cambodian Capt. Prum Sanghoun, a Royal Cambodian Armed Forces doctor, explains the care of a patient to Army Staff Sgt. Erin Smith, a medic with the Idaho National Guard's Charlie Company, 145th Brigade Support Battalion, during a tour of the Phnom Penh Military Hospital June 27, 2012. The Idaho National Guard conducted the subject matter expert exchange as part of its ongoing relationship through the National Guard Bureau's State Partnership Program with the Royal Kingdom of Cambodia.

A student pilot and a sensor operator sit at the controls of a remotely piloted MQ-9 Reaper in a ground-based cockpit during a training mission flown from Hancock Field Air National Guard Base, Syracuse, New York June 6, 2012. The 174th Fighter Wing will become the 174th Attack Wing Sept. 9, reflecting the change of mission from flying fighter aircraft to operating the MQ-9, which the wing has done since December 2009.

Uganda’s political pressure group For God and My Country (4GC) will launch a campaign in rural areas to educate residents about the government’s failure to tackle the country’s problems, says the group’s leader Matthias Mpuga.

Remains of burnt buses outside a power plant in the Qaboun suburbs of Damascus, Syria, in June 2012.

Syrian Ministers Killed in Damascus

DRC army soldiers stand guard during a military operation to strike M23 positions close to Rutshuru in eastern North Kivu province.

Special Representative Bert Koenders.

A Pakistani court has rejected the findings of a commission that traveled to India to investigate the 2008 terrorist attacks in the Indian city of Mumbai.

Kofi Annan, Joint Special Envoy of the UN and the League of Arab States on Syria.