Channels

Battles in Damascus
Photo: Reuters

Assad forces pound rebels in Damascus, Aleppo

Syrian general claims army has crushed rebels, retaken Damascus. Meanwhile, Tehran says 48 Iranians pilgrims kidnapped in Damscus

Syrian artillery, planes and a helicopter gunship pounded rebel positions in Aleppo on Saturday, witnesses said, as President Bashar Assad's orces tried to break through the insurgents' frontline in Syria's largest city.

 

An army general commanding forces loyal to the regime claimed Saturday that government forces have retaken the Capital, adding that the situation is "excellent and stable."

 

 

Meanwhile, Abdel Jabar Oqaida, commander of the Free Syrian Army in Aleppo, said the district of Salaheddin had “come under the heaviest bombardment since the battle began” on July 20 but that loyalists had “not managed to advance.”

 

Related stories:

  

In Damascus, troops backed by armor stormed the last opposition bastion on Friday in a drive to crush a rebel offensive that coincided with a bombing that killed four of Assad's senior security officials. The onslaught continued on Saturday as jets bombarded the city, a resident said.

 

Syrian forces battered Aleppo's Salaheddine district, seen as a gateway for the army into the city of 2.5 million people. The fate of the district could determine the outcome of a conflict that has already claimed some 18,000 lives.

 

"There is one helicopter and we're hearing two explosions every minute," a witness said.

 

The civil war has intensified in the past few weeks, with fighting engulfing Damascus and Aleppo for the first time in the 17-month-old uprising against Assad family rule. The two cities are crucial prizes for both sides in a conflict that has eluded all attempts at a diplomatic solution and risks igniting a wider conflagration.

 

48 Iranian pilgrims kidnapped

Meanwhile, Iranian state television reported on Saturday that gunmen snatched a bus filled with 48 Iranian pilgrims from a Damascus suburb as they headed to visit a shrine holy to Shiites. Iranian news agency Fars later reported that the pilgrims were released by Syrian government troops.

 

The abduction was the largest single kidnapping of Iranians in Syria, where several smaller groups of Iranians have been snatched in recent months. It came as regime forces were pounding the neighborhood of Tadamon, on the southern outskirts of the Damascus, trying to uproot one of the last rebel-held areas in the city.

 

The pilgrims had just left their hotel on Saturday and were headed by bus to the Sayeda Zeinab mosque, a holy shrine for Shiite Muslims in a suburb south of the capital, when they were taken, Iran's Arabic language, state-owned TV station Al-Alam said, citing an official at the Iranian embassy in Damascus.

 

The state news agency, in a conflicting report, said they were headed to the airport when they were taken. The report added that the location where they were being held was known, without giving any further details.

 

Iran's English-language state station, Press TV, blamed "terrorists" for the abduction, echoing language used by the Syrian regime to describe the rebels in has been battling for the past 17 months in an uprising that has claimed 19,000 lives.

 

Mainly Shiite Iran is a close ally to the Syrian regime, which is dominated by the Alawites, an offshoot of Shiite Islam. Iranians have been targeted several times by gunmen from the Sunni-dominated opposition.

 

In February, gunman kidnapped 11 Iranian pilgrims driving from the Turkish border to Damascus to visit Shiite shrines. At least two were later freed with Turkish mediation. Earlier, seven Iranian engineers building a power plant in central Syria were kidnapped and the Free Syrian Army claimed responsibility, accusing them of aiding Assad's regime. At least four have been released.

 

AP, AFP and Reuters have contributed to this report

 

 

 

 


פרסום ראשון: 08.04.12, 19:51
 new comment
Warning:
This will delete your current comment