Syrian cities enter 2013 rocked by fresh shelling
Syria starts 2013 with aerial strikes and clashes as forces loyal to Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad battle with rebel fighters for the control of key cities.
Residents of Aleppo and Homs reporting shelling, as residents of Damascus entered the new year to the sound of artillery hitting southern and eastern districts that form a rebel-held crescent on the outskirts of the capital.
The latest shelling came as the opposition-linked Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based monitoring group, reported 160 people killed on the final day of 2012, including at least 37 government troops. The group’s reports cannot be verified.
In the government-held centre of Damascus, soldiers manning checkpoints fired celebratory gunfire at midnight, causing alarm in a city where streets were largely deserted.
“How can they celebrate? There is no ‘Happy New Year’,” Moaz al-Shami, an opposition activist who lives in the capital’s central Mezzeh district, said over Skype.
Assad’s air force pounded Damascus’s eastern suburbs, as well as rebel-held areas in the second city Aleppo, and several rural towns and villages, opposition activists said.
No dancing
One Damascus resident, who asked not to be identified for security reasons, said the usual new year’s eve crowds were absent from the increasingly isolated capital.
“There was hardly anyone on the streets, no cars, no pedestrians. Most restaurants, cafes and bars were empty,” she said. Some young people gathered at three bars in the old city.
There was music but nobody was dancing. They just sat there with a drink in their hands and smoking. I don’t think I saw one person smile
There was music but nobody was dancing… I don’t think I saw one person smile Damascus resident
The resident added that the midnight gunfire caused alarm at first. “It was very scary. No one knew what was going on. People got very nervous and started making phone calls. But then I discovered that at least on my street, the gunfire was celebratory.”
A resident of the central city of Homs, who asked to remain anonymous, said shells had landed on the old city early on Tuesday. Government forces ousted rebels from the city early last year but militants have slowly crept back in.
Under siege
“The old city is under siege. There is shelling from all sides,” said the resident.
The civil war in Syria has become the longest and deadliest of the conflicts that rose out of the uprisings that swept through the Arab world over the past two years.
An estimated 45,000 people have been killed in the revolt, which started in early 2011 with peaceful protests demanding democratic reforms but turned into an armed uprising after months of attacks on protesters by security forces.
Many Sunni Muslims, the majority in Syria, back the rebellion, while Assad, who hails from the Shi’ite-derived Alawite minority sect, is backed by some minorities who fear revenge if he falls.
A year ago, many diplomats and analysts predicted Assad would leave power in 2012. But he has proved resilient and none of his inner circle have defected. He still largely retains control of his armed forces.
In the final days of 2012, international mediator Lakhdar Brahimi called on countries to push the sides to talk, saying Syria faced a choice of “hell or the political process”.