Bomb in Homs kills 15 as army pounds rebels near Damascus
Iraq major weapons route to Syria: report
DAMASCUS, Dec 2, (AFP): A car bomb rocked Syria’s third largest city Homs on Sunday killing 15 people, state media said, as the army hammered rebel positions around Damascus in a strategic assault aimed at securing the capital.
Shell fire from Syria, meanwhile, hit a Turkish border town late Saturday, without causing casualties. It was the first cross-border shelling since Ankara requested that NATO deploy Patriot air defence missiles on the restive frontier.
“A terrorist attack struck the Hamra district of Homs,” the state SANA news agency said, adding that it killed 15 people and wounded 24 in the government-held neighbourhood. State television said it was a car bombing.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also reported a car bombing in Homs.
“At least seven civilians were killed in a car bomb explosion near the sports stadium,” it said, adding that many of the wounded were in a critical condition and the death toll was likely to rise.
“The Hamra neighbourhood has been under regime control throughout the revolt,” Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP. “The blast hit an area where there is a large vegetable market. The closest checkpoint is some 500 metres (yards) away.” Amateur video footage posted online by opposition activists showed the bodies of at least three victims, including a woman buried in the rubble of a building as a car burned not far away.
Another video showed an injured child lying in hospital, wailing in pain.
Homs was one of the cradles of the armed uprising against the rule of President Bashar al-Assad, earning it the monicker of “capital of the revolution” from opposition activists.
Violence
The city suffered devastating violence early this year, but for the past six months the army has opted to keep mainly Sunni Arab rebel-held districts around the centre under siege rather than launch an all-out assault. Assad’s forces on Sunday hammered rebel positions around Damascus with artillery fire and air strikes, in an offensive aimed at securing a perimeter around the capital including the main highway to the international airport that has been under sustained rebel assault, a watchdog said.
“The Syrian army has opened since Thursday morning the gates of hell to all those who even consider getting close to Damascus or of attacking the capital,” proregime newspaper Al-Watan said.
Fierce fighting erupted in several villages in the eastern suburbs and the army shelled rebel positions in the larger towns of Douma and Harasta, as troops sought to secure the airport highway, the Observatory said.
Meanwhile, the air corridor over Iraq has emerged as a supply route for weapons for the beleaguered government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, including rockets, antitank missiles, rocket-propelled grenade and mortars, The New York Times reported late Saturday.
Citing unnamed US officials, the newspaper said that to the disappointment of the administration of President Barack Obama, US efforts to persuade the Iraqis to randomly inspect the flights have been largely unsuccessful. Iran has an enormous stake in Syria, which is its staunchest Arab ally and has also provided a channel for Iran’s support to the Lebanese Islamist movement Hezbollah, the report said.
According to the paper, Iran appears to have been tipped off by Iraqi officials as to when plane inspections would be conducted, thus helping Tehran avoid detection.
Iran’s continued efforts to aid the Syrian government were described in interviews with a dozen US administration, military and Congressional officials, The Times said.
“The abuse of Iraqi airspace by Iran continues to be a concern,” the paper quoted one of the officials as saying. “We urge Iraq to be diligent and consistent in fulfilling its international obligations and commitments, either by continuing to require flights over Iraqi territory en route to Syria from Iran to land for inspection or by denying overflight requests for Iranian aircraft going to Syria.”