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BEIRUT (AP) — In a reflection of how intertwined the Syria and Iraq conflicts have become, thousands of Shiite Iraqi militiamen helping President Bashar Assad crush the Sunni-led uprising against him are returning home, putting a strain on the overstretched Syrian military as it struggles to retain territory recaptured in recent months from rebels.

The borders between the two countries are being largely ignored, with fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant said to be crossing freely from one side to the other, transporting weapons, equipment and cash in a development that has potential to shift the balance of power in a largely stalemated battle.

The seizure of large chunks of Iraq by militants does offer Assad a messaging victory: he has long insisted that the uprising against him is the work of foreign-inspired Islamic extremists, suggesting that the West needs to work with him to check the influence of jihadis, and that the radicals, not the divided and weaker pro-Western moderate rebels, are the real alternative to his rule.

The violent actions and speedy successes of the same group in Iraq, against a government the West does essentially support, seem to align with his argument. And he can relish the fact that the U.S. is weighing airstrikes against Sunni militants in Iraq — and possibly Syria — while shying away from any military action against his government for the past three years.

But the developments also threaten to upset what has recently been an upward trend by Assad's forces in the three-year-old Syrian conflict.

The Syrian government is heavily reliant on foreign fighters to bolster its ranks and help quell the largely Sunni insurgency engulfing the country. They include thousands of Shiite Hezbollah fighters, Iranian Revolutionary Guard advisers and Iraqi militiamen who left their homes and headed to Syria to defend what they see as an attack on the Shiite regional axis comprised of Iran, Assad, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government in Iraq.

That axis is now under mounting pressure. The militants of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant are carving out an ever-expanding fiefdom along the Iraqi-Syrian border. Earlier this month, they seized Iraq's city of Mosul — and they have vowed to march on to the Iraqi capital Baghdad as well. In the past few days, the militants seized two strategically located towns along the Euphrates River, including the Qaim border crossing with Syria — advancing their efforts to etch out a large region straddling the two conflict-ridden countries.

"The developments in Iraq are a double-edged sword for Assad," said Randa Slim, a director at the Washington-based Middle East Institute. "On one hand, these developments help Assad's narrative to his constituents and to the West that his fight is with terrorists and not against democrats." On the other hand, she said, the Islamic State's rapid and successful incursion into Iraq undermines Assad's claim that he is able to defeat them.

In the most immediate outcome, thousands of Iraqi Shiite militiamen fighting in Syria are heading back home to defend against the Sunni blitz, leaving behind gaping holes in areas under their control.

In interviews conducted by The Associated Press with returning Shiite fighters in Baghdad, many said they were responding to a call to arms issued in recent days by Iraq's Shiite spiritual leader Ali al-Sistani. Others said they considered Iraq to be the mother battle.

"Yes, we took part in the fighting in Syria. But now the priority is Iraq," said Jassem al-Jazaeri, a senior official in Iraq's Hezbollah Brigades, which is believed to be funded and trained by Iran's Revolutionary Guard.

Most of the Shiite Iraqi fighters in Syria — believed by some estimates to number between 20,000 and 30,000 — have been battling rebels in suburbs of the Syrian capital and particularly in the vicinity of Sayida Zeinab, home to a major Shiite shrine by the same name.

Syrian opposition activists say Syrian rebels are already exploiting the vacuum left by the Iraqis to mount attacks. A number of Hezbollah fighters were killed in an attack on the town of Rankous in the Qalamoun region last week. The town fell to government and Hezbollah forces two months ago.

Firas Abi Ali, head of Middle East and North Africa Analysis, IHS Country Risk, said in a recent analysis that the Syrian government will compensate for any redeployment of Iraqi fighters using manpower drawn mainly from Hezbollah.

"However, the Iraqi fighters' departure would probably temporarily reduce the ability of the Syrian government to mount new offensives and place it on the strategic defensive," he said.

Another concern for Assad is the possibility that the Islamic State might transfer advanced weapons and vehicles from Iraq across the border into Syria.

A senior Iraqi intelligence official confirmed that fighters have indeed begun doing this. The official, who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity, said the fighters recently seized depots in Mosul containing up to 400,000 pieces of weaponry and ammunition, and that a quarter of it has been moved to Syria, possibly for storage and safe guarding.

In a report Saturday, the global intelligence outfit Stratfor said the group has seized from retreating Iraqi soldiers armored vehicles, small arms, ammunition, artillery, communication devices, and possibly more.

"This gear would provide a substantial boost on the battleground in Syria, and the group has indeed already begun to transfer some of this equipment across the border," said the report.

Opposition activists in eastern Syria say they have not yet seen anything to indicate any game changing weapons at play.

Still, such reports are likely to make the West even less inclined to supply rebels in Syria with the advanced weaponry they need to confront Assad's military superiority.

"This will translate into less pressure on the Assad regime and more reluctance to arm the moderate Syrian rebel groups for fear that those weapons will fall in the hands of the jihadis," Slim said.

Observers also say the Iraq chaos is putting a strain on Shiite powerhouse Iran, as it labors to prop up beleaguered allies in both Iraq and Syria. Suleiman Takieddine, a columnist writing in the Lebanese daily As-Safir, said Iran's ability to endure a long war of attribution on multiple fronts, "economically, militarily and politically," is in doubt.

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Abdul-Zahra reported from Baghdad.

"Flying Shoes" (Bloomsbury) by Lisa Howorth

There are many good reasons to read and enjoy "Flying Shoes."

For one, it is the debut novel of Lisa Howorth, a much revered stalwart of the literary South. She is the founder, with her husband, Richard, of Square Books, a venerable independent bookstore that took a perch on the town square in Oxford, Mississippi, in 1979.

After all these years of promoting and befriending a broad cast of authors both famous and fledgling, Howorth now offers a book of her own. There is a measure of celebration in her arrival as a novelist.

And how fares the book itself?

Its central character, Mary Byrd Thornton, is a refreshing creation. She's bright and brassy, caring but nonconformist, a Southern woman with two school-age children, a dutiful husband, an eclectic circle of friends and maybe an oddball lover on the side.

Mary Byrd, as she's most often called, has a lot on her mind. Flowers, plants and shrubs. Family history. Criminal investigations, old and new.

On one level, the book is a form of meditation, through fiction, of Howorth's loss of her young stepbrother in a molestation and murder many years ago. The crime occurred when Howorth was 15, and even after decades it has never been solved.

As the novel opens, Mary Byrd learns that the long-dormant probe into the killing of her 9-year-old stepbrother has been reopened and a suspect very likely will be prosecuted. Mary Byrd lives in a Mississippi university town — think Oxford — and will need to travel to Virginia to meet with the cold case detective.

This is the thread of a plot that carries the narrative, but it often is lost as Mary Byrd's attention wanders and Howorth gives center stage to various secondary characters and events. For some readers, this can be frustrating. Long digressions can put a drag on the pace of the story.

But Howorth writes with real flair. Her riff on Mary Byrd's fear of flying is hilarious. In the space of a few pages she touches on every tic in the neurotic's bag of flight phobias.

Those secondary characters and events also can be expertly drawn. One of the best is Teever, a penniless black Vietnam veteran who lives in a cemetery and is one of Mary Byrd's good buddies. When he suffers a deep, ghastly cut to his foot, he seeks out impoverished Mexicans in a rundown trailer park to provide the medical care — a chilling but wildly funny episode.

It is one of many well-crafted narrative detours — detours that tend to diminish the suspense of the child murder case that has been reopened. Over the length of the book, however, these divergent episodes form a memorable mosaic of a place, a time and a good-hearted woman at midlife, facing crises old and new.

MANAUS, Brazil (AP) — Cristiano Ronaldo will play, and Portugal needs to win.

The world player of the year hasn't been able to shake a lingering left knee injury since coming to Brazil, but he is expected to start Sunday when the Portuguese face the United States in a crucial Group G match at the World Cup.

"He trains everyday with all of us. So Cristiano is fit to play," Portugal midfielder Raul Meireles said Saturday. "That's all I can say."

Portugal lost its opening match to Germany 4-0, and another loss on Sunday will mean immediate elimination from the World Cup. The Americans, however, won their opening game and can secure a spot in the second round with another victory.

As usual when Ronaldo plays, though, the outcome of the match can be easily swayed by a moment of brilliance from the Real Madrid winger.

"He's strong physically. He's a fast runner. He's the best in the world with the ball at his feet," United States goalkeeper Tim Howard said. "That's why he's the best player in the world.

"We're going to do our best to bottle him up."

Ronaldo played in the loss to Germany on Monday, but he has since been seen at training with a brace on his left knee.

If he is not 100 percent healthy for the match at the Arena da Amazonia, an already undermanned Portugal could struggle to earn the three points needed to stay in the tournament.

Portugal coach Paulo Bento, however, said he is not putting any pressure on his star player.

"In October 2010, I told him once and that's it, I would never put on his shoulders, or anybody else, the responsibility to solve the problems," Bento said. "The only person that has one individual responsibility is me."

Even with Ronaldo on the field, Portugal will be short-handed.

Defender Fabio Coentrao, Ronaldo's teammate at Real Madrid, and striker Hugo Almeida have been ruled out of the rest of the World Cup with injuries. Pepe, another Real Madrid defender, is suspended.

The shakeup on the field won't be the only changes in the Portugal team following the opening loss.

"We have to change the result," Meireles said. "It's not because of a defeat in the previous game that we're going to change. We all know what we have to do. We're all prepared to do our best."

The match will be the third to be played in the heat and humidity at the Arena da Amazonia in Manaus, the most exotic of the 12 World Cup venues.

Both sides say they are prepared for the conditions.

"Everybody can feel the difficulty that we and the United States will have tomorrow. Very high humidity," Meireles said. "That is a complicating factor, but it's complicated for both teams, so we can't have any excuses there."

Whether it's the weather, the injuries or anything else, the certainty for Portugal is the need for victory on Sunday.

"Either we win," Bento said, "or we start packing our bags."

The Washington Post reports that in 2005 a project with the code name Devil Eyes produced action dolls of Osama bin Laden. The project didn't happen, but one doll lives on — at the CIA.