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was to take place as well.
• The president's request for congressional authorization for limited military strikes against Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime is at the heart of all the discussions planned in Washington over the next several days as Obama sends his top national security advisers to the Capitol for a flurry of briefings. And with the outcome of any vote in doubt in a war-weary Congress, Obama was to meet Tuesday with leaders of the House and Senate armed services committees, the foreign relations committees and the intelligence committees.
• Obama won conditional support Monday from two of his fiercest foreign policy critics, Republican Sens. John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.
• A congressional vote against Obama's request "would be catastrophic in its consequences" for U.S. credibility abroad, McCain told reporters outside the White House following an hour-long private meeting with the president.
• ___

• BEIRUT (AP) -- The number of refugees fleeing Syria's violence has surpassed the 2 million mark, the U.N. refugee agency said Tuesday, as top U.S. officials prepared to argue before a key Senate committee for a punitive strike against the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad.
• Earlier, the U.S. administration won backing from French intelligence and reportedly also from Germany's spy agency for its claim that Assad's forces were responsible for suspected chemical weapons attacks on rebel-held areas near Damascus that are believed to have killed hundreds of Syrian civilians.
• A nine-page intelligence synopsis published by the French government Monday concluded that the regime launched the Aug. 21 attacks involving a "massive use of chemical agents" and could carry out similar strikes in the future.
• In Germany, the news magazine Der Spiegel reported that the Federal Intelligence Service (BND) also believes Assad's regime was behind the attacks. On its website, the magazine reported that BND head Gerhard Schindler recently told top government officials in a secret briefing that while the evidence is not absolutely conclusive, an "analysis of plausibility" supports the idea of the Syrian government as the perpetrator.
• The Assad regime has denied using chemical weapons, blaming rebels instead. Neither the U.S. nor Syria and its allies have presented conclusive proof in public.

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