Israel says strikes Syria to shield Druze as clashes spread

The sectarian violence, and Israel's intervention, present huge challenges to the Islamist authorities who overthrew longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad in December, and follow massacres last month in Syria's Alawite coastal heartland. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel "carried out a warning action and struck the organisation of an extremist group preparing to attack the Druze population" in Sahnaya. Deadly sectarian clashes erupted overnight in Sahnaya, a town home to people from Syria's...