Gun row over pizza topping
Shia militias halt Aleppo evacuation
A DOMINO’S pizza boss sparked an armed siege after attacking a customer in a row over missing toppings.
Damien Price, 26, snapped when Paul Williams kept phoning about the lack of pepperoni. He arrived at the victims’ home on a scooter, shouted “stop ringing the f ****** shop”, and hit him.
He then went home for a BB gun, leading to the siege. At Exeter crown court, Price admitted assault and having a firearm. The judge gave him a 13-month suspended sentence, saying: “The poor topping was the catalyst.”
THE hopes of thousands of civilians waiting to flee Aleppo were dashed yesterday as pro-regime Shia forces scuppered an evacuation deal.
Aid agencies and buses ready to rescue people from the ravaged Syrian city on the second day of a ceasefire were ordered out as heavy weaponry was brought in.
The militias, backed by Iran’s Shia government, have demanded that the same ceasefire deal be honoured at the besieged Shia villages Foua and Kefraya.
Iran is one of Syria’s main allies and rescue of the wounded from Foua and Kefraya was agreed as a concession after it blocked an initial ceasefire and evacuation deal that was negotiated on Tuesday.
As Shia villages, they would be loyal to President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.
A pro-government Hezbollah group yesterday accused rebels of hindering rescue attempts.
The group added that protesters had blocked the road from Aleppo and demanded that the wounded in Foua and Kefraya be evacuated.
But rebels accused the pro-government militias of opening fire on evacuee coaches from the city – one of which was forced to turn back at a roadblock.
Regime forces said the evacuation was halted because the rebels had tried to take out people they had abducted, plus weapons hidden in bags.
Monitoring group The Syrian Observa- tory for Human Rights said 8,000 people – including some 3,000 fighters and more than 300 wounded – have left the city since the evacuation began on Thursday.
Last night, rebels in eastern Aleppo went on high alert as the militias’ heavy weaponry was positioned nearby, possibly with a view to renewed hostilities.
The United Nations claims there are still about 50,000 people trapped in rebel-held Aleppo, of whom some 10,000 would be taken to Idlib province and the rest to government-held city districts.
However, Idlib province is mostly controlled by hardline Islamist groups and is not a popular destination for fighters and civilians from east Aleppo, where the rebels are considered more moderate.
Idlib is also a target for the devastating airstrike campaigns of the regime and its ally Russia.
The Syrian government’s campaign to retake all of Aleppo kicked off in midNovember, spearheaded by the Iranian-backed militias.
More than 90% of the former rebel bastion had been recaptured before the evacuation mission began.
The Syrian civil war is now in its sixth year and close to 500,000 people have been killed while millions have been displaced.
Meanwhile, a seven-year-old girl carried out a suicide bombing at a police station in the Midan neighbourhood of Syrian capital Damascus yesterday.
A witness said she entered the building and asking to go to the toilet before blowing herself up. There were reports of casualties.