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• The violence in Syria hasn't captured the full attention of an American electorate consumed by the economy and other domestic issues. But the barbs being traded between the campaigns try to raise questions of leadership for the two men battling for a job filled with unexpected challenges.
• Romney zeroes in on what he portrays as a lack of leadership in Obama's handling of Syria's 14-month government crackdown on opponents to the regime. Following a weekend massacre of more than 100 Syrian civilians, including dozens of women and children, Romney said the president's weakness had resulted in a "policy of paralysis."
• In turn, the Obama campaign has sought to cast the president as the one bearing the responsibility for actually handling the crisis. While Obama "has demonstrated his ability to work with world leaders to resolve international conflicts," campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt said, Romney has a "rudderless foreign policy agenda."
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11-year-old Syrian boy saw entire family killed, survived massacre by playing dead
• BEIRUT (AP) -- When the gunmen began to slaughter his family, 11-year-old Ali el-Sayed says he fell to the floor of his home, soaking his clothes with his brother's blood to fool the killers into thinking he was already dead.
• The Syrian boy tried to stop himself from trembling, even as the gunmen, with long beards and shaved heads, killed his parents and all four of his siblings, one by one.
• The youngest to die was Ali's brother, 6-year-old Nader. His small body bore two bullet holes -- one in his head, another in his back.
• "I put my brother's blood all over me and acted like I was dead," Ali told The Associated Press over Skype on Wednesday, his raspy voice steady and matter-of-fact, five days after the killing spree that left him both an orphan and an only child.
• Ali is one of the few survivors of a weekend massacre in Houla, a collection of poor farming villages and olive groves in Syria's central Homs province. More than 100 people were killed, many of them women and children who were shot or stabbed in their houses.
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