Teacher:In this task, you are given a text of many news articles seperated by special token "|||||". Your task is to summarize them.
Teacher: Now, understand the problem? Solve this instance: WASHINGTON — With the growing conviction that the Assad family’s 42-year grip on power in Syria is coming to an end, Obama administration officials worked on contingency plans Wednesday for a collapse of the Syrian government, focusing particularly on the chemical weapons that Syria is thought to possess and that President Bashar al-Assad could try to use on opposition forces and civilians. 
  
 Pentagon officials were in talks with Israeli defense officials about whether Israel might move to destroy Syrian weapons facilities, two administration official said. The administration is not advocating such an attack, the American officials said, because of the risk that it would give Mr. Assad an opportunity to rally support against Israeli interference. 
  
 President Obama’s national security adviser, Thomas E. Donilon, was in Israel over the weekend and discussed the Syrian crisis with officials there, a White House official said. 
  
 Mr. Obama called President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia on Wednesday and urged him again to allow Mr. Assad to be pushed from power. Russia, so far, has refused. A White House statement said that Mr. Putin and Mr. Obama “noted the growing violence in Syria and agreed on the need to support a political transition as soon as possible that achieves our shared goal of ending the violence and avoiding a further deterioration of the situation.” 
  
 The statement pointedly noted the “differences our governments have had on Syria,” but said the two leaders “agreed to have their teams continue to work toward a solution.” 
  
 American diplomatic and military officials said the bombing in Damascus on Wednesday that killed several of Mr. Assad’s closest advisers was a turning point in the conflict. “Assad is a spent force in terms of history,” Jay Carney, the White House press secretary, told reporters. “He will not be a part of Syria’s future.” 
  
 Alluding to Russia’s position, Mr. Carney said the argument that Mr. Assad’s ouster would result in more violence was refuted by the bombing, and that Mr. Assad’s continued rule “will result in greater violence,” not less. 
  
 Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta said on Wednesday that Syria’s crisis, was “rapidly spinning out of control.” 
  
 Within hours of the bombing, the Treasury Department announced additional sanctions against the Syrian prime minister and some 28 other cabinet ministers and senior officials, part of the administration’s effort to make life so difficult for the government that Mr. Assad’s allies desert him. “As long as Assad stays in power, the bloodshed and instability in Syria will only mount,” said David S. Cohen, a senior Treasury official. 
  
 Behind the scenes, the administration’s planning has already shifted to what to do after an expected fall of the Assad government, and what such a collapse could look like. A huge worry, administration officials said, is that in desperation Mr. Assad would use chemical weapons to try to quell the uprising. 
  
 “The Syrian government has a responsibility to safeguard its stockpiles of chemical weapons, and the international community will hold accountable any Syrian officials who fails to meet that obligation,” Mr. Carney said. 
  
 Any benefit of an Israeli raid on Syria’s weapons facilities would have to be weighed against the possibility that the Assad government would exploit such a raid for its own ends, said Martin S. Indyk, the former United States ambassador to Israel and director of the Foreign Policy Program at the Brookings Institution. 
  
 He and several administration officials said the view was that Mr. Assad might use chemical weapons as a last resort. “But it crosses a red line, and changes the whole nature of the discussion,” Mr. Indyk said. “There would be strong, if not overwhelming sentiment, internationally, to stop him.” Russia, in particular, would probably have to drop its opposition to tougher United Nations sanctions against Syria, and Mr. Assad’s other remaining ally, Iran, would probably not look too kindly on a chemical attack. ||||| AMMAN/CILVEGOZU, Turkey (Reuters) - Rebels seized control of sections of Syria's international borders and torched the main police headquarters in the heart of old Damascus, advancing relentlessly after the assassination of Bashar al-Assad's closest lieutenants. 
  
 The battle for parts of the capital raged into the early hours of Friday, with corpses piled in the streets. In some neighborhoods residents said there were signs the government's presence was diminishing. 
  
 Officials in neighboring Iraq confirmed that Syrian rebels were now in control of the Syrian side of the main Abu Kamal border checkpoint on the Euphrates River highway, one of the major trade routes across the Middle East. 
  
 Rebels also claimed control of at least two border crossings into Turkey at Bab al-Hawa and Jarablus, in what appeared to have been a coordinated campaign to seize Syria's frontiers. 
  
 In Damascus, a witness in the central old quarter district of Qanawat said the huge headquarters of the Damascus Province Police was black with smoke and abandoned after being torched and looted in a rebel attack. 
  
 "Three patrol cars came to the site and were hit by roadside bombs," said activist Abu Rateb by telephone. "I saw three bodies in one car. Others said dozens of security men and shabbiha (pro-Assad militia) lay dead or wounded along Khaled bin al-Walid street, before ambulances took them away." 
  
 The next few days will be critical in determining whether Assad's government can recover from the devastating blow of Wednesday's bombing, which wiped out much of Assad's command structure and destroyed his circle's aura of invulnerability. 
  
 Assad's powerful brother-in-law, his defense minister and a top general were killed in Wednesday's attack. The head of intelligence and the interior minister were wounded. 
  
 Government forces have responded by blasting at rebels in their own capital with helicopter gunships and artillery stationed in the mountains overlooking it. 
  
 Assad's own failure to appear in public for more than 24 hours - he was finally shown on television on Thursday swearing in a replacement for his slain defense minister - added to the sense of his power evaporating. His whereabouts are not clear. 
  
 Diplomatic efforts - rapidly overtaken by events on the ground - collapsed in disarray on Thursday when Russia and China vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution that would have imposed sanctions unless Syrian authorities halted violence. Washington said the Council had "failed utterly". 
  
 Activists in Damascus said rebels were now in control of the capital's northern Barzeh district, where troops and armored vehicles had pulled out. 
  
 The army had also pulled out of the towns of Tel and Dumair north of Damascus after taking heavy losses, they said. However they said troops were hitting the western district of Mezzeh with heavy machineguns and anti-aircraft guns overnight. 
  
 The reports could not be confirmed. The Syrian government restricts access by international journalists. 
  
 A resident who toured much of Damascus late on Thursday said he saw signs that the government's presence was diminishing, with only sporadic checkpoints and tanks in place in some areas. The Interior Ministry at the main Marjeh Square had a fraction of its usual contingent of guards still in place. 
  
 Shelling could be heard on the southwestern suburb of Mouadamiyeh from hills overlooking the city where the Fourth Division, commanded by Assad's brother Maher, is based, he said. 
  
 Syrian television showed the bodies of about 20 men in T-shirts and jeans with weapons lying at their sides, sprawled across a road in the capital's Qaboun district. It described them as terrorists killed in battle. 
  
 COORDINATION 
  
 The operations to seize the border checkpoints appear to show a level of coordination and effectiveness hitherto unseen from the rebels, who have been outgunned and outnumbered by the army throughout the 16-month conflict. 
  
 Footage filmed by rebels at the Bab al-Hawa border crossing with Turkey showed them climbing onto rooftops and tearing up a poster of Assad. 
  
 "The crossing is under our control. They withdrew their armored vehicles," said a rebel fighter who would only be identified as Ali, being treated for wounds on the Turkish side. 
  
 Two officers in the rebel Free Syrian Army said fighters were keeping themselves busy into the early hours of Friday, dismantling border computer systems, seizing security records and emptying the shelves of the duty free shop. 
  
 At least 30 government tanks in the area had not mobilized to try to recapture the border post, according to Ahmad Zaidan, a senior Free Syrian Army commander. 
  
 Officials in neighboring Lebanon said refugees were pouring across the frontier: a security source said 20,000 Syrians had crossed on Thursday. 
  
 UTTER FAILURE 
  
 Diplomacy has been largely ineffective throughout the crisis, with Western countries condemning Assad but showing no stomach for the sort of robust intervention that saw NATO bombers help blast Libya's Muammar Gaddafi from power last year. 
  
 Thursday's failed U.N. Security Council resolution, which would have extended a small, unarmed U.N. monitoring mission, was the third that has been vetoed by Russia and China. 
  
 The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, said the Security Council had "failed utterly", and Washington would look outside the body for ways "to bring pressure to bear on the Assad regime and to deliver assistance to those in need". 
  
 To replace the vetoed text, Britain proposed a four-paragraph resolution that would at least extend the expiring mandate of the monitors for 30 days. Russia's ambassador said he would ask Moscow to consider it. 
  
 (Additional reporting by Oliver Holmes, Samia Nakhoul and Dominic Evans in Beirut, Suleiman Al-Khalidi in Cilvegozu, Turkey; Writing by Peter Graff; Editing by Andrew Roche) |||||
Student:
Describing the suicide blast that killed Bashar al-Assad's security chiefs yesterday as a turning point, American officials are now getting ready for the Syrian regime's collapse, reports the New York Times. Pentagon officials have urged the Israelis not to attack Syrian weapons facilities, fearing that such a move would allow Assad to rally support. President Obama spoke to Vladimir Putin yesterday, but the Russian leader once again refused to allow Assad to be pushed from power. But Obama and Putin "agreed on the need to support a political transition as soon as possible" to end the violence, said a White House statement. Fierce fighting is raging for a sixth day in Damascus, sometimes in sight of the presidential palace, and Assad's whereabouts are a mystery, reports Reuters. "This is a situation that is rapidly spinning out of control," said Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, who called on the world to put the maximum pressure on Assad to step down. Russia's foreign minister described the battles in the capital—which rebels call the "liberation" of Damascus—"the decisive fight." A human rights group says at least 214 people died in the Syrian conflict yesterday, including 60 who were killed when a helicopter gunship attacked a funeral procession in a southern suburb of Damascus, reports the BBC.