Assad Sends His Warplanes of Death To Aleppo....40 Dead

Assad continues to punish Aleppo for their defiance.

The story comes from Times of India.

Air strikes kill at least 40 in northern Syria


BEIRUT: Air strikes around the northern Syrian city of Aleppo killed at least 40 people on Saturday, most of them civilians, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The pro-opposition monitoring group said there were at least six strikes on the outskirts of Aleppo and nearby towns. Dozens of people were wounded, it said.

"Some of the strikes in the neighbourhood of Tareeq al-Bab appeared to be targeting rebel headquarters but instead the rockets fell in a busy street and caused heavy civilian casualties," Rami Abdelrahman, head of the Observatory, said by telephone.

Assad's Missile Strike On Aleppo, Syria Kills 19 Children

So a missile barrage from the military of Bashir Assad hit the city of Aleppo full force killing 29 people but a watchdog group claims that of the 29 civilians killed, 19 of them are children.

Oh well, children really don't count in the wars of Islam...well, at least as long as you aren't an infidel fighting in Afghanistan then you better not touch the hair of one boy or girl.

The story comes from The Telegraph.

Syria missile strike kills 19 children


At least 29 people, mostly children, died in a regime missile strike on the Syrian city of Aleppo, a watchdog said, as Hizbollah-backed regime forces advanced in flashpoint Homs.

Nineteen children were among the 29 killed in the northern city’s Bab Nairab neighbourhood “in a surface-to-surface missile strike by regime forces” on Friday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The Britain-based monitoring group relies on a wide network of medics and activists on the ground.

A militant group said the toll could rise as rescue operations were still under way on Saturday.

The Observatory said the army was targeting rebel headquarters, including a base of the jihadist Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), in Bab Nairab. “But the missile fell dozens of metres (yards) away,” it said.

“My whole family was wiped out, my whole family,” a boy in tears said near the rubble of his home, in a video posted by the Observatory.

On the battlefield in central Syria, Hizbollah-backed regime forces gained ground in the Khaldiyeh district in Homs after ousting rebels in fierce clashes in the flashpoint city, the Observatory said.

Regime forces now control “60 per cent of Khaldiyeh,” the Observatory said, and also captured the Khaled bin Walid mosque.

State television quoted a military source as saying that regime forces were in control of all the area around the mosque.

Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP of “continuous heavy mortar and artillery fire” overnight Friday and that the Khaldiyeh district was still being pounded.

Rebels were putting up “fierce resistance” amid “very intense clashes”.

Militant network the Syrian Revolution General Commission (SRGC) also reported heavy fighting in the district, which has been besieged by regime forces for more than a year.

“Khaldiyeh is being targeted by an uninterrupted heavy bombardment, and on the ground there is fierce fighting between (rebel) Free Syrian Army fighters and regime forces backed by Lebanon’s Hizbollah trying to take the district,” a statement said.

Syria’s official press said the army was now back in control of most of Khaldiyeh, while an activist on the ground told AFP that the sector was being shelled “day and night”.

The SRGC and the Observatory both said the Old City district of Homs – dubbed the “capital of the revolution” against President Bashar al-Assad – was being pummelled too.

The latest regime offensive on besieged rebel-held neighbourhoods of Homs is now in its fourth week.

Government forces are seeking to secure another victory like the one in Qusayr near the border with Lebanon in June, when the Shiite militant group Hizbollah was key in retaking the strategic town.

Hizbollah, the strongest military force in Lebanon and a staunch ally of the Assad regime, has had its military wing blacklisted by the European Union as a terrorist group.

The 28-month-old civil war in Syria has killed a total of more than 100,000 people and left million of refugees, without any peace settlement in sight.

In New York, a UN spokeswoman said the world body’s chief Ban Ki-moon is to review an accord struck with Syria on investigating the use of chemical weapons before any details are announced.

Ban will meet in New York on Monday with the two envoys who struck the accord, spokeswoman Morana Song told AFP.

The United Nations and Syrian government announced in a joint statement issued late Friday that an accord had been reached “on the way forward” in the investigation, following a Damascus visit this week by two UN envoys.

At Least 53 Syrian Soldiers and Syrian Rebels Killed In Fight Over Police Academy

Aleppo in Syria has been the scene of huge bloodshed in the past number of months as the Syrian rebels and Assad's troops have gone back and forth for control of the city - well, in the past 24 hours, both forces have fought over control of a police academy in Aleppo and the death toll so far is staggering.  According to reports, Syrian troop losses are at 30 and the rebels have had 23 killed.

Must be a helluva police academy, huh?

The story comes from DAWN.

Over 50 killed in battle for Syria police academy

BEIRUT: At least 30 Syrian troops and 23 rebels were killed over the past 24 hours in fierce clashes for control of a police academy in the northern Aleppo province, a watchdog said on Monday.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also reported that rebels shot down a regime helicopter near a military base elsewhere in the north of the province as insurgents pressed on with attacks on the police academy in the west.

At least 53 combatants, 23 rebels including a battalion commander and 30 Syrian troops, were killed over the past 24 hours in the fighting outside the town of Khan Assal, the Britain-based Observatory said.

It said rebels took control of a building where troops were entrenched as warplanes tried to repel them and “took hostage dozens of pro-regime militants.”

But the pro-regime Al-Watan newspaper said Monday that “members of the police academy rebuffed the intensive attacks of armed men for the second consecutive day, inflicting heavy losses on them with artillery.”

The police academy is one of the last regime bastions in the west of Aleppo province.

The chopper was shot down near Minnigh military airport, which rebels have been trying to stop for months, “and burst into flames after it was hit,” the Observatory said.

A local resident confirmed to AFP that “the helicopter was shot down while trying to land” at the strategic airbase, located in the north of the province.

Also on Monday regime warplanes bombarded the southwestern and eastern outskirts of Damascus in a protracted bid to dislodge rebels from their rear bases, killing 10 civilians including two children, the Observatory said.

Inside the capital, troops shelled rebel strongholds in the east and south, killing two civilians including a young girl, and another girl was killed in mortar fire in clashes that broke out near the Yarmuk Palestinian refugee camp.

In the northwestern province of Idlib at least eight civilians were killed in air raids on villages in Jabal Zawiya and shelling on the rebel-held village of Khirbet al-Joz on the Turkish border.

Fighter jets also raided towns in the southern province of Daraa, cradle of the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad that broke out in March 2011 and has left 70,000 dead, according to the United Nations.

In the mainly Kurdish province of Hasake, the Al-Nusra Front and other rebels seized Tal Hamis after several days of heavy fighting and regime shelling that forced most of the town’s residents to flee, the Observatory said.

The watchdog, which relies on a vast network of activists on the ground and medics, said at least 92 people were killed in violence across Syria on Monday.