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Dublin: 10 °C Sunday 26 May, 2013

Syrian government warplanes pound Aleppo rebels – NGO

The fighter jets have repeatedly hit areas held by the rebels in two districts of the city today.

Free Syrian Army soldiers during clashes with Syrian government forces in Aleppo
Free Syrian Army soldiers during clashes with Syrian government forces in Aleppo
Image: AP Photo/Alberto Prieto

SYRIAN GOVERNMENT WARPLANES pounded rebel-held districts of Salaheddin and Sakhur in the northern city of Aleppo on Sunday, a watchdog said.

“Fighter jets are being used to pound Shaar and Sakhur,” Rami Abdel Rahman of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights told AFP.

Earlier, clashes broke out between troops and rebels in the districts of Ansari, Hamdaniyeh and Sukari in Aleppo, scene of heavy fighting since 20 July, the Observatory said, adding at least 40 people were killed across Syria on Sunday.

Of those killed, 24 were civilians, 10 were soldiers and six were rebel fighters.

In Damascus, regime forces raided the district of Qaboon on Sunday, arresting several civilians, the Observatory said, adding that one of the detainees was a 12-year-old boy.

After clashes with rebels in Rokn Eddin on Saturday, the military set up new checkpoints in the neighbourhood of Damascus and in several other parts of the capital.

Elsewhere in the province of Damascus, clashes broke out in Kfar Batna as regime forces shelled that village. The army also shelled Harasta, in the same province.

At Rastan in the central province of Homs, regime forces pounded rebel positions, said the Britain-based Observatory.

“Regime forces dropped more than 60 shells on Rastan, at a rate of four to five shells a minute,” the watchdog added.

On Saturday, violence nationwide killed 205 people, the Observatory said.

It is impossible to independently verify death tolls out of Syria, while the United Nations has stopped giving its own count.

- © AFP, 2012

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Comments (11 Comments)

  • What surprises me is the idea that the Syrian army should not be fighting the rebels. If armed insurgents started kicking off in any country you would expect the army to intervene. Are the rebels right? I don’t know but don’t trust either side.

    Reply
  • Why are media outlets still listening to the tripe being spewed by the “Syrian Observatory for Human Rights”?

    The SOHR is actually run out of an apartment in Coverntry. It isjust one person, Rami Abdhul Rahman, a hardline anti-Assad activist, and his mobile phone on to his mates in Syria. Nothing that has come from it is based on fact. It is an anti-Assad rumour mill.

    The very fact that the SOHR said it was “not in their interest” to report on the deaths of pro-Assad Syrians shows just what a sham they are. http://www.rt.com/news/syria-death-count-political-875/

    Reply
    • Mark, every time the ‘observatory’ is quoted on the journal there are a multitude of comments from many different people saying the same thing. I gave up posting it. The journal in this instance seem to just ignore their readers and keep posting this crap.

      Reply
    • If you don’t like it ignore it, but open your eyes to all the other independent media sources (and film footage) which are all saying the same thing…

      Reply
  • What kind of journalism is this? Isn’t this just plain out propaganda? Quoting a one man operation from a flat in England so definitely. How in the hell is this happening in our free world. Surely we are not free anymore. The wool is well and truly being pulled over people’s eyes by corporations and they don’t even realise.

    Reply
  • Throw a few dollars and some arms in , start a rebellion , then a no fly zone, then invade, hey presto more natural resources to plunder , and a stepping stone to Iran,
    But at all times get the media to blame the ‘tyrant’ and pity the rebels, simples.

    Reply
    • Mick 06/08/12 #

      Iran have a war pact with Syria, a no fly zone will likely trigger it.

      Reply
    • There’s no need for the apostrophes around tyrant. Any leader who refuses his people free and fair elections and then shoots them when they go looking for those same rights you’re enjoying right now, and sets his attack dogs to massacre children in their homes, is, would you believe, by definition, a tyrant. And notably, just like his father before him. But hey, never let the facts get in the way of some good old fashioned anti-west jaundice.

      Reply
    • 50 points for melodramatics

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    • Nothing I said, Daithi was untrue, so where are the melodramatics? Assad’s father killed 20,000 in Hama (Robert Fisk’s figure) in a similar uprising back in the early 80s. And now his son is looking like out-doing his father in this regard.

      Reply
  • Well..y’see…when they are ours, they are rebels and liberating revolutionaries for democracy…its THEIR guys are the homicidal terrorists..ok?
    Repeat it back to me…We do liberation..They do terror…we do liberation…they do terror..see, its easy.

    Reply

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