BEIRUT: Syria’s army yesterday pressed a fierce assault launched four days ago against rebel areas in northern and eastern Damascus, killing three children with mortar fire, a monitoring group said. In northern Syria, rebels said they had begun a new assault on regime-held neighbourhoods of Aleppo.
“The district of Qaboon in (northeastern) Damascus is being intensely shelled by regime forces,” the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported. Rebels were resisting the onslaught, battling troops loyal to President Bashar Al Assad on the edges of Qaboon, it said.
Afternoon shelling in Qaboon killed or wounded several people, after a bus filled with passengers was hit, the Britain-based group said. Overnight, mortar fire targeting Qaboon had already killed three children from one family, it added.
Nearby, as fighting raged in the flashpoint district of Barzeh, rebels fired rockets at a police academy in the neighbourhood, said the watchdog. It also said two mortar rounds hit Abbasiyeen Square in the northeast of the capital, one of Damascus’s main landmarks. Several people were wounded in the attack, the group said.
Meanwhile in Aleppo, large swathes of which are under rebel control, the main rebel Free Syrian Army (FSA) command announced in an online statement the launch of “a battle to liberate several western districts”. Activists said fierce fighting raged in the regime-held New Aleppo district in the west.
Rebels launched their first major assault on Aleppo on July 20 last year. Despite fierce fighting since, there is now a stand-off in the city. The latest assault is being staged by 13 rebel groups, including the powerful Liwa Al Tawhid and the Farouq Battalion, the FSA statement said.
Yesterday’s fighting was heaviest in the Rashidin area of New Aleppo, an activist in the city said. “A fire broke out in a military research centre in New Aleppo after the revolutionary brigades used mortars to shell it,” said the activist Mohammad, adding that the rebels were advancing on Rashidin. AFP
