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A damaged building in Aleppo’s Karm Al Jabal district yesterday.
DAMASCUS: Syria’s air force bombarded Qusayr yesterday, two weeks into a Hezbollah-backed assault, as the regime said it will only allow the Red Cross into the embattled town once it has defeated rebels.
At the United Nations, diplomats said Russia blocked a draft Security Council declaration expressing “grave concern” about the situation in the strategic town near the border with Lebanon.
Elsewhere, a car bombing killed nine security forces members in Damascus, adding to an estimated 94,000 lives lost in the more than two-year conflict, as France said a peace conference on ending the bloodshed could be delayed.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the suicide attack appeared to have been carried out by the jihadist Al Nusra Front, although there was no confirmation.
In the central province of Homs, regime warplanes carried out multiple raids against the northern part of Qusayr and the area between the town and Dabaa.
A day earlier, international aid groups called for the evacuation of civilians trapped in the town. But Syria’s Foreign Minister Walid Muallem told UN chief Ban Ki-moon in a telephone call that the Red Cross would not be allowed to enter until the assault is over. “Syrian authorities will allow the Red Cross in cooperation with the Syrian Red Crescent access to the area immediately after the end of military operations,” SANA quoted him as saying.
Rebels, Hezbollah clash
Meanwhile, Hezbollah guerrillas fought a deadly battle with Syrian rebels in Lebanon’s eastern border region, security sources said, in the latest eruption of Syria’s conflict on Lebanese soil.
Lebanese security sources said at least 12 rebels were killed in the fighting east of the Bekaa Valley town of Baalbek, but the toll would not be clear until bodies were retrieved from the remote and rugged border area. One Hezbollah fighter also died, they said.
The fighting took place near Ain el-Jaouze in a strip of Lebanese territory which extends into Syria, the sources said, and the rebels may have been ambushed as they set up rockets to fire into Shia areas of the Bekaa Valley.
AFP/Reuters
