Syria helicopters ‘bomb rebel area near Turkey border’
Syrian helicopters and artillery bombard the Ras al-Ain area near the Turkish border days after Free Syrian Army rebels captured it during an advance into the northeast, opposition campaigners say.
The surge in violence follows another day of bloodletting across Syria on Saturday which saw 121 people killed, including 11 civilians in Daraa just outside the capital, the site of the worst massacre in Syria’s 20-month conflict, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The Britain-based watchdog said in eastern Syria, two civilians were killed in air raids on the town of Albu Kamal on the Iraqi border while several districts of Deir Ezzor city were shelled by tanks.
The watchdog also reported clashes between Assad’s forces and rebels during the night in the town of Harasta on the northeastern outskirts of Damascus.
It comes as Syrian opposition groups have signed an initial agreement to form a new coalition of forces fighting to end the rule of Assad, a Syrian delegate at talks in Doha said.
“An initial deal has been signed. The evening session will be for electing the president of the body and his deputy,” Ali Sadreddine al-Bayanouni, a Muslim Brotherhood delegate at the talks, told reporters.
The Local Co-ordination Committees, a network of opposition activists on the ground, meanwhile, reported heavy shelling overnight by regime forces on rebel areas southwest of the capital and in the town of Yabrud to the north.
In the northern city of Aleppo, where fighting between rebels and government troops has raged since mid-July, mortars rained down on the rebel bastions of Shaar in the east, Sukari in the south and Halab al-Jadida in the west, according to the Observatory.
Tanks fired on rebels
Residents said fierce clashes erupted in the northwest districts of Zahraa and Liramun, where tanks fired on rebel positions, and in the embattled old city.
The Observatory reported army shelling on Sunday of the strategic rebel-held town of Maaret al-Numan, the nearby village of Maarshmisha and Idlib city in the northwest province of Idlib.
The army on Saturday retook a stretch of the Damascus-Aleppo highway in Idlib province used to send its reinforcements to main northern battlefields, but has failed to regain control of Maaret al-Numan.
According to Observatory, which relies on a network of activists, lawyers and medics in civilian and military hospitals, fighting also broke out on Sunday south of Ras al-Ain, in Hasakeh province.
The mainly Kurdish province of Hasakeh has seen heavy fighting in the past few days, with 46 combatants killed as the opposition seized Ras al-Ain on Friday.
The Observatory had on Saturday reported that Kurdish residents backed by militia from the Democratic Union Party (PYD) had taken control of three towns near the border with Turkey after convincing pro-government forces to leave.
Fears of more violence
The PYD has links with Turkey’s rebel Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
The watchdog said the residents had feared the same kind of violence that saw 9,000 Syrians flee to Turkey in 24 hours in the face of the fighting in Ras al-Ain.
Meanwhile, Syrian opposition groups said on Sunday they were close to an agreement on creating a new, united body against the Assad regime.
“At a meeting grouping representatives of different opposition groups and independents, more than 90 per cent of the agreement has been finalised,” said Salem al-Muslat, a member of the main opposition bloc, the Syrian National Council (SNC).
