Syria blames rebels for Aleppo bomb blasts
THE Syrian government blamed its opponents yesterday after four deadly blasts struck a governmentcontrolled district in central Aleppo, killing at least 48 people, according to several reports.
The co-ordinated attacks hit days after rebels launched an offensive against President Bashar al-Assad’s army in Syria’s second biggest city, leading to heavy fighting and a fire that gutted part of its market.
The state news agency Sana said suicide bombers detonated two explosive-laden cars in the main square, Saadallah al-Jabiri, which is lined on its eastern flank by a military club, two hotels and a telecommunications office. The explosions were followed by a volley of mortar bombs into the square and attempted suicide bombings by three rebels carrying explosives, it said.
Another bomb blew up a few hundred metres away on the edge of the Old City, where rebels have been battling Mr Assad’s forces.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 48 people had been killed, mostly from the security forces, while Sana put the death toll at 31. Yesterday’s attacks in Aleppo followed last week’s bombing of the military staff headquarters in Damascus, another strike by Mr Assad’s outgunned opponents against bulwarks of his power.
In July, rebels killed four of Mr Assad’s senior security officials in a Damascus bombing that coincided with a rebel offensive in the capital. Government forces have since pushed rebel fighters back to the outskirts of Damascus. But they have lost control of parts of northern Syria, as well as several border crossings with Turkey and Iraq, and failed to push the fighters out of Aleppo.
A pro-Assad Lebanese paper said on Tuesday Mr Assad was visiting the city to take a first-hand look at the fighting and had ordered 30,000 more troops into the battle.
Opposition activists say about 30,000 people have been killed across the country in the 18-monthold uprising, which has grown into a full-scale civil war with sectarian overtones and threatens to draw in regional Sunni Muslim and Shiite powers.
Sources in Lebanon said seven members of Lebanon’s Shiite Muslim militant group Hezbollah, a close ally of the Syrian president, were killed in Syria on Sunday in a rocket attack. They said the Hezbollah fighters were operating in the border area, monitoring the flow of weapons into Syria from Lebanon.
Hezbollah has politically supported its ally in Damascus but has not confirmed a military presence on the ground in Syria — wary of inflaming sectarian tensions in Lebanon, where many Sunni Muslims support the anti-Assad rebels.
The mainly Sunni rebels are supported by Sunni powers including Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, and have attracted Islamist fighters from across the Middle East to their cause. Mr Assad, from the Alawite minority which is an offshoot of Shiite Islam, is backed by Iran and Russia.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov said the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) and world powers should not seek ways to intervene in the war or set up buffer zones between rebels and government forces.
He also called for restraint between Nato member Turkey and Syria after tensions flared when a mortar round fired from inside Syria struck the territory of Turkey. Ankara has threatened to respond if the strike is repeated.
Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad warned on Tuesday hostilities in Syria could engulf the region and accused some Syrians of trying to use the conflict to settle scores with Tehran. He said a national dialogue and elections were the only way to solve the crisis.
An Egyptian attempt to bring together Egypt, Turkey, Iran and Saudi Arabia to search for a regional solution to the crisis also appeared to be going nowhere after Saudi Arabia stayed away for a second time from a meeting of the four countries.
Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem insisted on Monday that a political solution was still possible if the West and Gulf states halted support for the rebels. Reuters