Syrian authorities were reported on Wednesday, November 14 to have ordered airstrikes for a third straight day close to the Turkish border, offering no immediate response to a French announcement that the government in Paris was recognizing a newly formed Syrian rebel coalition and would consider arming the group, The New York Times reported. The French move represented an attempt to inject momentum into a broad Western and Arab effort to build a viable and effective opposition to hasten the end of Syria’s stalemated civil war which has destabilized the Middle East. For its part on Wednesday, the United States signaled a reluctance to go beyond its characterization of the rebel alliance as what officials have termed a legitimate representative of the Syrian people, rather than as their sole representative — the language used by France.