Tag Archives: Damascus

Syrian Government Bombs Civilians in Douma

The Syrian government has killed over 100 civilians in a series of airstrikes on a marketplace and other buildings in the Damascus suburb of Douma.

Syrian warplanes attacked the suburb Sunday and Monday with Sunday’s initial attack on a market killing over 80 civilians including women and children.

“In some places there was not enough capabilities to transfer the victims. It was very painful to see dead human bodies just left on the sidewalk,” said Abdullah al-Shami, a media activist, told CNN. “Scores of injured were bleeding while waiting their turn to get treatment.”

“It was really difficult to identify the bodies of the martyrs. Some of them were burned to the bone, so we couldn’t add them to the documented list,” said a 28-year-old spokesman of the Syrian Civil Defense Force, who declined to give his real name to Reuters for security reasons.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that Syrian troops waited after the initial attack for rescue personnel to arrive on the scenes of the bombings and then struck the same areas with a second volley.

The United Nations issued a swift condemnation of the attacks, saying that the “attacks on civilians are unlawful, unacceptable and must stop”.

The White House also issued a strong condemnation of the actions of the Syrian government.

“This latest tragedy is just another reminder of the inhumane acts perpetrated daily by the Asad regime against the Syrian people,” National Security Council spokesman Ned Price said in a statement.  “The regime is responsible for killing thousands of innocent Syrian civilians and destroying entire towns and cities, historical sites, schools, mosques, markets, and hospitals.  These abhorrent actions underscore that the Asad regime has lost legitimacy and that the international community must do more to enable a genuine political transition.”

(Misspellings of the Syrian regime listed in the quote above were done purposefully, as that is how the White House spells the regime’s name.)

Blast Kills 8 In Damascus

A blast in the center of Damascus has left at least 8 people dead.

Police officials saw at least 50 were wounded in the explosion at Hijaz Square outside the offices of a railway company.

A second blast happened in the town of Suweida outside the headquarters of the Air Force’s intelligence headquarters, killing 8 including the head of the intelligence branch.

The government blamed the attack on “terrorists,” their code word for the rebels attempting to overthrow the government of President Bashir al-Assad.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights disputed the government’s account of the Damascus bombing saying that it could not be determined if the attack was from a bomb or a mortar shell. No group has claimed responsibility for the bombings.

Agreement Allows Civilians To Flee Damascus Suburb

The BBC is reporting that thousands of civilians trapped in the Damascus suburb of Musahamiya fled after rebel forces and government troops agreed to a temporary cease fire to let them leave.

However, reports say that the government went through the group of refugees and detained at least 500 men for questioning. This contradicts a statement from the Syrian Red Crescent that all men arrived at a government center for displaced citizens.

Sources in Muadhamiya told the BBC that many civilians are still hiding in the suburb out of fears of government troops.

The Syrian minister for social affairs says that anyone left behind in Muadhamiya is going to be considered a rebel fighter or terrorist.

The situation in the city had become so severe that Islamic leaders said it would be acceptable for citizens to eat cats, dogs and donkeys to survive when those animals are normally considered “unclean” for Muslims.

Israel strikes Syria, says targeting Hezbollah arms

Israeli jets devastated Syrian targets near Damascus on Sunday in a heavy overnight air raid that Western and Israeli officials called a new strike on Iranian missiles bound for Lebanon’s Hezbollah.

As Syria’s two-year-old civil war veered into the potentially atomic arena of Iran’s confrontation with Israel and the West over its nuclear program, people were woken in the Syrian capital by explosions that shook the ground like an earthquake and sent pillars of flame high into the night sky.

“Night turned into day,” one man told Reuters from his home at Hameh, near one of the targets, the Jamraya military base.

Source: Reuters – Israel strikes Syria, says targeting Hezbollah arms

Syrian Government Troops Kill 80

The Syrian Army was able to take control of a town in Damascus by killing at least 80 people including women and children.

The army captured Jdaidet al-Fadl after five days of intensive shelling and fighting. The state news agency said the troops inflicted “heavy losses upon terrorists” in the town but observer groups said that most of the dead were women and children, not rebel fighters. Continue reading →