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Heavy clashes between rebels and regular troops have erupted in Damascus in the “most intense” fighting in the
capital since the start of the anti-regime revolt in Syria 16 months ago, a monitoring group has said.
“The regular army fired mortar rounds into several suburbs” where fighters of the Free Syrian Army are entrenched, said Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights on Sunday.
“They have never been this intense,” Abdel Rahman told the AFP news agency.
The rebel faction Revolution Leadership Council of Hama (RLC-H) is claiming another new “massacre” today in the village of Tremseh in Hama Province. After early reports of fighting in the area, the RLC-H put the death toll at “more than 250,” almost all civilians.
The rebels said that helicopter gunships first attacked the village, and that “pro-government militias” attacked later, carrying out mass executions and piling the bodies in front of the local mosque. The rebel Syrian National Council (SNC) demanded UN Security Council action.
Israeli fighter jets on Tuesday morning bombarded several sites in the southern Gaza Strip, without causing injuries.
Three missiles landed in a militant base of the Al-Ansar Brigades, the military wing of Al-Ahrar movement, in Khan Younis, witnesses said. The airstrike caused material damage, but no injuries were reported.
Yemeni airstrikes killed three al-Qaeda fighters and wounded seven in the country’s south, a Yemeni military official said Wednesday. The strikes by Yemen’s air force were part of an offensive against the militants.
The official said the raids targeted militants in the border between Abyan and Shabwa provinces.
Al-Qaeda militants took advantage of a year of internal turmoil in Yemen that eventually led to the resignation of longtime President Ali Abdullah Saleh to overrun large areas of the south.
Iran declared Wednesday that it can destroy nearby U.S. military bases and strike Israel within minutes of an attack on the Islamic republic, reflecting tensions over Iran’s suspect nuclear program.
The veiled threat came during a military drill that has included the firing of ballistic missiles. The elite Revolutionary Guards, conducting the war games in Iran’s central desert, said that the missiles were aimed at mock-ups of foreign military bases.
Israel and the U.S. have hinted at the possibility of military strikes against Iran if sanctions and diplomacy do not rein in Iran’s nuclear development program. The West suspects Iran may be aiming to build nuclear weapons. Iran insists its program is for peaceful purposes.