Syria crisis: Damascus blast 'kills 16 soldiers'
At least 16 Syrian
soldiers have been killed in a suicide bombing and fighting that
followed in a Damascus subur.
The blast triggered clashes at a checkpoint near the
mainly-Christian area of Jaramana, the Syrian Observatory for Human
Rights said.
State media blamed "terrorists" for the explosion but did not give details.
Earlier, the US urged the Syrian government to allow aid to reach starving civilians in Damascus.
Washington said the army's months-long siege left many people in rebel-held areas in desperate need of food, water and medicine.
The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which
relies on a network of activists inside Syria, said the suicide car
bombing by the al-Qaeda-linked Nusra Front triggered heavy fighting at a
key checkpoint between Jaramana and the rebel-held town of Mleha.
The rebels fired rockets into Jaramana during the
fighting and Syrian fighter jets retaliated by striking nearby
opposition-held areas
The BBC's Jim Muir in neighbouring Lebanon says the use of
suicide bombers to open an offensive is a tactic that has been used
increasingly by the rebels in recent months.
Rebels control much of the countryside around Damascus but
Jaramana - a Christian and Druze area mostly loyal to President Bashar
al-Assad - is still held by the government.
In August a car bomb in the suburb killed 18 people.
Syria's embattled President Assad has drawn support from
Syria's ethnic and religious minorities, including Christians and
members of his Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shia Islam.
The rebel movement is dominated by Sunni Muslims, who are a majority in Syria.
In a statement on Friday, US State Department spokeswoman Jen
Psaki said: "We call on the Syrian regime to immediately approve relief
convoys."
Paul Wood reports on the struggle to survive in rebel-held areas of Syria
At least three of Damascus's suburbs - Yarmouk, Eastern
Ghouta and Moudamiyah - have been besieged by government forces for
several months.
The situation has become so desperate that earlier this week
Muslim clerics issued a religious ruling allowing people to eat cats,
dogs and donkeys just to survive.
Those animals are usually considered unfit for human consumption in Islam.
More than 100,000 people have been killed in Syria's
conflict, now in its third year. It began with popular protests against
President Assad before degenerating into civil war.
0 comments:
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Post a Comment