#Syria rebels say will cease fire if government does so first

24/10/12

The rebel Free Syrian Army will cease fire during this week’s Eid al-Adha Muslim holiday if government forces stop shooting first, its commander said on Wednesday.

“The FSA will stop firing if the regime stops,” said FSA military council chief General Mustafa al-Sheikh, speaking to AFP by telephone from Turkey in reference to a proposal by international peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi.

However, he said the “regime has lied many times before. It is impossible that the regime will implement the truce, even if it says it will.”

Brahimi has proposed a truce for the four-day Eid, which starts on Friday.

Syria’s foreign ministry said it would make a final decision on the truce on Thursday, although Brahimi said earlier Damascus has accepted the proposal.

Meanwhile, a spokesman for the FSA’s Mustafa Brigade in the Eastern Ghuta area of Damascus province expressed skepticism.

“What truce is possible when there are non-stop massacres and the martyrs are dying in the hundreds?” he told AFP via Skype.

“Amid the unrelenting aerial bombardment, which truce do you think will be applied?”

The FSA is an umbrella term for scores of rebel groups that have joined the 19-month uprising against the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

-AFP

04/09/12

#Syria, THE PRICE THE SYRIANS ARE PAYING FOR FREEDOM!

Red Cross chief in #Syria as fighting rages

04/09/12

Red Cross chief Peter Maurer was in Syria on a mercy mission Tuesday amid a surge of bombings and clashes in the capital and the second city Aleppo that left scores more dead, a spokeswoman said.

Maurer’s mission will “focus on increased humanitarian needs and to remind the belligerents of their obligation under international law related to the protection of civilians” in particular, said International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) spokeswoman in Damascus Rabab Rifai.

Making his first visit to violence-wracked Syria since being appointed as ICRC head on July 1, Maurer is slated to meet with President Bashar al-Assad and senior officials, including Foreign Minister Walid Muallem, Rifai said, but gave no timings.

The visit comes amid a surge in violence in the past weeks across Syria, where according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights more than 5,000 people were killed in the month of August alone.

The Britain-based watchdog, which relies on its information from a network of activists on the ground, said 153 people died countrywide on Monday — 72 civilians, including 19 children and 14 women, 42 soldiers and 30 rebels.

Among those killed was an entire family — including seven children — when a government air raid hit their home in the heart of Aleppo, witnesses told an AFP correspondent in Syria’s second city.

An activist said that on Tuesday, several districts of the northern city were bombarded with artillery and mortar fire as was an area near the Aleppo airport, bordering the Nayrab district in the southwest of the city.

A senior commander in charge of the regime offensive on Aleppo told AFP that the army would recapture the city from the rebel forces “within 10 days.”

Some 3,000 troops were involved in the fight against about 7,000 “terrorists,” said the general, adding that 2,000 of the insurgents had been killed since the assault on Aleppo was launched at the start of August.

In the capital Damascus, fighting broke out in the Yarmuk Palestinian refugee camp early Tuesday between members of the PFLP (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine) and rebel fighters, the Observatory said.

It also reported fighting between rebels and the army in the capital’s southern district of Tadamun, which is adjacent to the camp.

The Syrian Revolution General Council, a network of opposition activists, said that panicked residents were fleeing the Yarmuk camp in droves amid the fighting.

On Monday, a car bomb ripped through the mainly Christian and Druze Damascus suburb of Jaramana, killing at least five people, according to the Observatory.

In Madrid, the opposition Syrian National Council appealed to the international community for weapons and urgent military intervention to defend civilians from such attacks.

“We need a humanitarian intervention and we are asking for military intervention for the Syrian civilians,” SNC chairman Abdel Basset Sayda said. “I have the duty of asking for weapons that will allow us to defend against the Syrian armour and weapons.”

Sayda said the conflict had now killed 30,000 people and forced millions from their homes, including more than three million displaced inside the country and 250,000 who had fled abroad. Another 100,000 had been detained.

The plight of civilians was at the forefront of the ICRC mission to Syria, Maurer said in a statement issued on Monday in Geneva.

“At a time when more and more civilians are being exposed to extreme violence, it is of the utmost importance that we and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent succeed in significantly scaling up our humanitarian response,” the ICRC chief said.

His talks with Syrian officials would largely deal with the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Syria, as well as the difficulties the ICRC and the Red Crescent face as they try to reach people affected by the armed conflict, the statement said.

According to the Observatory, more than 26,000 people have been killed in Syria since the revolt began in March last year — more than two-thirds of them civilians.

In Ankara, a US official told AFP that CIA director Petraeus was in Turkey for regional meetings, without elaborating.

His visit comes less than two weeks after Turkish and US officials held their first operational planning meetings aimed at bringing an end to the Assad regime.

04/09/12

#Syria, a young man lost his mind seeing his family massacred on the floor

Iran Confirms It Has Troops On The Ground In #Syria

28/08/12

Michael Kelley

The Iranian Revolutionary Guards

In May Saeed Kamali Dehghan of the Guardian reported that a senior commander in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) admitted that Iranian forces are actively operating in Syria in support of Bashar al-Assad’s regime as the U.S. and its Gulf allies continued to back the Syrian opposition.

“Before our presence in Syria, too many people were killed by the opposition but with the physical and non-physical presence of the Islamic republic, big massacres in Syria were prevented,” deputy head of Iran’s elite Quds force Ismail Gha’ani said in an interview with the semi-official Isna news agency that was published then removed from its website.

This admission has been corroborated as the WSJ reports that the Quds force—the foreign operations arm of the Revolutionary Guards—is sending IRGC commanders and hundreds of foot soldiers into Syria at a time when Bashar al-Assad’s regime is reeling from mass defections, loss of territory and a bombing that devastated its inner circle.

“Today we are involved in fighting every aspect of a war, a military one in Syria and a cultural one as well,” IRGC unit commander Gen. Salar Abnoush told volunteer trainees in a Monday speech quoted by WSJ.

From WSJ:

“[Quds force Qasim commander Qasim] Solaimani has convinced Mr. Khamenei that Iran’s borders extend beyond geographic frontiers, and fighting for Syria is an integral part of keeping the Shiite Crescent intact,” said the IRGC member in Tehran. The so-called Crescent, which came together after Saddam Hussein’s fall, includes Shiites from Iran, Iraq, Lebanon and Syria.

Meanwhile a recent New York Times story that initially said “American intelligence agents have helped funnel arms to rebel groups” was changed to “American intelligence agents have helped to identify the rebel groups that receive arms.”

In June the NYT cited American officials and Arab intelligence officers to report that CIA operatives were helping funnel weapons such as automatic rifles, rocket-propelled grenades and anti-tank weapons to opposition groups seen as most friendly to the U.S.

It is unclear if the U.S. has provided arms to the members of al-Qaeda and other foreign jihadist organizations who have established themselves as some of the best fighters in the rebellion.

In March hacked emails for the U.S. security firm Stratfor revealed that the former director of the security firm Blackwater was sent to contact Syrian rebels in Turkey at the request of a U.S. Government committee.

A new study for Congress found that weapons sales by the U.S. tripled in 2011 to a record high because of “major arms sales to Persian Gulf allies concerned about Iran’s regional ambitions,” the NYT recently reported.

Syria’s Foreign Minister told the Independent that “the US is the major player against Syria and the rest are its instruments.”

In his May story Dehghan noted that the Quds force is closely tied to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and responsible for protecting the concept of Islamic revolution

#Syria conflict: ‘Scores of bodies found’ near Damascus

26/08/12

Government forces launched an assault on Darayya on Saturday after days of bombardment

Syrian opposition activists say scores of bodies have been found in a town near the capital, Damascus, accusing government troops of a “massacre”.

Many of those killed in the town of Darayya were victims of execution-style killings, the activists said.

According to unconfirmed reports, 200 bodies were discovered in houses and basement shelters.

Without commenting on the activists’ claim, Syrian state TV said Darayya was being “cleansed of terrorist remnants”.

The UK said that if the reports were confirmed, the killings would “be an atrocity on a new scale”.

Meanwhile, Syrian Vice-President Farouq al-Shara has greeted an Iranian delegation in Damascus, quashing weeks of speculation that he had defected to the opposition.

President Bashar al-Assad, who also met the Iranian delegation, said Syria would continue its current policy “whatever the cost” and accused Western nations of a regional conspiracy.

‘House-to-house’ raids

The forces of President Assad launched an assault on Darayya on Saturday, after days of heavy bombardment.

The BBC’s Barbara Plett in Beirut says the attack was part of a wider campaign to reclaim the southern outskirts of Damascus, where rebels have been regrouping since being driven out a month ago.

Activists on the ground later posted unverified video footage on the internet, which shows rows of bodies side by side in the Abu Auleiman al-Darani mosque.

The activists say that many of the victims had gunshot wounds to the head and chest and were killed during house-to-house raids by government troops.

“Assad’s army has committed a massacre in Darayya,” an opposition member told Reuters.

The activist added that most of the victims had been killed at close range, and some died from sniper fire.

The UK Foreign Office said it had opposition reports that “300 people, including women and children, were killed and that some were shot at close range”.

Foreign Office minister Alistair Burt said that, if confirmed, the killings would require “unequivocal condemnation from the entire international community”.

Mr Burt added: “It would make [Saturday] the bloodiest day since the unrest in Syria began in March 2011, with over 400 killed across the country.”

The opposition Local Coordination Committees group put the death toll for Saturday at 440 across Syria.

(Vice-President Farouq al-Shara appeared on Sunday, ending speculation he had defected)

Another opposition group, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, says 320 people were killed in Darayya over five days, not on Saturday alone.

The claims by the activists have not been independently verified because of restrictions placed on foreign media across Syria.

The official Syrian state news agency said: “Our heroic armed forces cleansed Darayya from remnants of armed terrorist groups who committed crimes against the sons of the town and scared them and sabotaged and destroyed public and private property.”

Meanwhile Vice-President Shara was seen entering his office for a meeting with an Iranian delegation, following weeks of rumours that he had defected.

State media said a “fake” email had been sent out saying Mr Shara had been sacked and that this was “completely wrong”.

After welcoming the Iranian team, President Assad accused some Western and regional countries of trying to “deviate Syria from its stance”.

State news agency Sana quoted him as saying: “Because Syria is the cornerstone, foreign powers are targeting it so their conspiracy succeeds across the entire region.”

Failed ceasefire

Local activists say the type of mass killing reportedly carried out in Darayya, with dozens of bodies being discovered following government raids, has increased in recent months.

Human Rights Watch said it was not a new pattern, but was now happening in more areas and in greater numbers.

An earlier report from United Nations observers found that both sides had carried out massacres, but the Syrian army was responsible for a far greater number of deaths.

Fighting continued in other parts of Syria on Sunday, including in the second city of Aleppo, where fighter jets dropped bombs on rebel-held positions in what was described as the fiercest fighting there in the past week.

In a separate development, the head of the UN mission to Syria left the country after the mission had been wound up.

Senegalese Lt Gen Babacar Gaye joined a UN convoy to Lebanon on Saturday.

Last week, the UN decided against extending the mission, which was originally part of a six-point peace plan for Syria.

However, the ceasefire mandated by the plan never took hold and rising violence forced the UN monitors to be confined to their hotels since June.

(Heavy fighting is continuing in Aleppo in the north)

#Syria, Dozens of bodies found outside Damascus

The fighting continues … an image grab taken from a YouTube video allegedly shows smoke billowing from buildings in Syria’s northern city of Aleppo, following shelling by government forces. Photo: AFP/Youtube

BEIRUT: Dozens of bodies, possibly more than 200, have been found in a town outside Damascus, raising the spectre of a massacre by Syrian troops as bad as any atrocity committed since the uprising began 18 months ago.

The circumstances and number of deaths in the town, Daraya, could not be confirmed independently, and the reported death toll varied.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based group with a network of activists inside Syria, said early Saturday that there were 40 to 50 bodies, while another activist organisation, the Local Co-ordination Committees, raised the toll to more than 200 that night. The latter group said activists found one mass body dump after another.

They posted two videos showing what they said were different groups of victims; in one a series of charred bodies could be seen wrapped in blankets; in another, a far larger group of bodies - more than 150, according to the video’s narrator - had been lined up together in a dark area of what was said to be a local mosque.

Activists said most of the people killed were executed by government forces, who have been shelling the town for days as part of a scorched earth campaign by Syrian troops to wipe out rebels and their sympathisers in several areas near the capital.

Most of the victims appeared to be men, but the Daraya Co-ordination Committee said the dead included eight members of a single family, including three children and their mother.

The violence described by the activists in Daraya fit a pattern of deaths that has begun to emerge after raids by government forces in several areas near Damascus. Over the past week, activists repeatedly reported that Syrian soldiers had invaded towns where rebels had control, only to leave piles of bodies behind.

Experts have said extrajudicial killings were a particularly Syrian brand of counterinsurgency, in which fear has been the dominant tool.

The challenge in this case will be confirming exactly what occurred. UN observers have left Syria without plans to return.

Fighting also continued on Saturday across the country, from Aleppo in the west to Deir al-Zour in the east.

Meanwhile, the war’s reach into Lebanon appeared to be receding, at least for now.

On Saturday, a Shiite family that had abducted dozens of Syrians inside Lebanon said that it would let all but a few of the captives go, and Syrian rebels released one of 11 Lebanese pilgrims kidnapped in May.

26/08/12

#Syria, New massacre in the basement of Unity Street
Martyrs Ghaith Sakka رفعات Alabbar, Samer Noah and Solomon Egyptian TAKES honor student and a young man from the house Alabbar

#Syria army shells Damascus suburb, kills 21 - opposition

24/08/12

AMMAN (Reuters) - The Syrian army pounded the Damascus suburb of Daraya on Friday, killing at least 21 people on the third day of a campaign to regain control of outlying areas of the capital, opposition activists said.

Daraya, a sprawling Sunni Muslim working-class area, is located among the old Ghouta farmlands surrounding Damascus, where guerrillas have been taking cover after attacking government troops.

Opposition activists said the death toll in Daraya in the past 72 hours had reached at least 70, mostly civilians. A list of the names of the 21 killed on Friday included two children from the al-Khatib family.

The army used multiple rocket launchers at the nearby Talet Qawqaba base and artillery at Mezze Military Airport, west of Daraya, to attack the town, where rebels were still holed up, activists in Damascus said.

“There are lots of bodies trapped in destroyed buildings and civilians are trying to flee towards Damascus,” an opposition activist in Daraya calling himself Abu Kinan told Reuters by phone.

A witness in Damascus said the army was also shelling Daraya from Republican Guards positions on Qasioun Mountain, on the northern edge of the capital. “In the last few minutes nine shells were fired on Daraya from Qasioun,” she said.

Fighting was also reported in a series of lower-middle-class Sunni suburbs that surround the capital, including Qatana, Sbeineh, Qadam, Assali and Hajar al-Asswad, they said.

Assad’s elite forces, made up mainly of members of his minority Alawite sect and increasingly used to keep control of Damascus, are based in hilltop compounds in the capital and surrounding areas.

(Reporting by Khaled Yacoub Oweis, Amman newsroom; Editing by Tim Pearce)

23/08/12

#Syria…THE WAR TORN COUNTRY OF SYRIA AND IT’S PEOPLE..SAY

”DO NOT GRIEVE THAT GOD SHIELDS US”

While the world watches!

#Syria, the loss

23/08/12

by: OwnBestAuthority

there are tiny, little hands there,

they died and lost their forever important lives.

lifeless tiny, baby hands, reaching out from the destruction,

my eyes are going blind from the horror of the sight.

because a very small, unfortunate man had to prove his might.

the people who should be guarding them are arguing over the loss.

while the lives of these little ones,

whose hands peak out of the bricks and spent bullet shells-

are the ones who paid the cost.

#Syria: major clashes in Damascus

22/08/12

Major clashes broke out in Damascus and the southern province of Dera’a in Syria yesterday, a sign of the difficulty the Assad regime is having in asserting control of rebellious districts.

An anti-Damascus regime supporter in the Bab al-Tabbaneh neighbourhood of the northern Lebanese port city of Tripoli Photo: AFP/Getty Images

By Richard Spencer, and Damien McElroy

7:26PM BST 22 Aug 2012

The regime regained control of areas of southern Damascus that rose up against it in July in sustained and sometimes bloody fighting. But on Wednesday it was forced once again to move against some of the same suburbs, bombarding them with tanks from the southern ring road and then sending in ground troops.

Activists said that 31 men were killed in house-to-house searches by the military, including 24 in the suburb of Kfar Souseh. Pictures of a large number of bodies, many apparently killed by close range gunshots, were posted on the internet.

At the same time, Syrian regime forces continued to fight rebels in Dera’a to the south, where the government has never been able to gain full control of the many hostile towns and villages outside the city itself, where the uprising against the regime began in March last year.

They were also under attack in the province of Deir al-Zour, on the Iraq border, which has gradually slipped out of its grasp over a number of months.

With the regime also increasingly using air power, including jet fighters particularly over Aleppo, there are increasing signs that the government is unable to deploy sufficient ground troops to keep the peace across the country.

Chinese state media meanwhile accused President Barack Obama of planning to use Syria’s chemical weapons stockpile as an excuse to launch a military intervention.

President Obama earlier this week said Syria’s use of chemical weapons in the conflict would be a “red line”.

“Once again, Western powers are digging deep for excuses to intervene militarily,” Xinhua said in a commentary, adding that the remarks were “dangerously irresponsible”.

The violence in Syria is spilling into Lebanon, where 12 people have died in three days of fighting between members of the Sunni and Alawite communities of the northern city of Tripoli – loyal to the rebels and the Assads respectively. An expected ceasefire failed to come into force.

Separately, the last moments of a Japanese journalist, Mika Yamamoto, 45, killed by regime troops in Aleppo when they attacked a rebel group she was filming were described by her husband and collaborator.

Kazutaka Sato said he was standing a little ahead of his wife when a group of Syrian soldiers started shooting in their direction.

He said troops had clearly identified the couple within the short distance between the two sides.

“They started shooting from 20-30 metres. I recognised their faces and immediately they opened fire,” he said. “I couldn’t save her, I couldn’t.”

He added that they would probably have been able to see she was a woman.

Speaking in a hotel room in Kilis, Turkey, after crossing the Syrian border, Mr Sato showed Miss Yamamoto’s bullet-scarred flak jacket.

In a video published after the attack, apparently taken at a field hospital, Mr Sato wept as he looked into her blood-smeared face, then gently pressed his cheek against hers.

“Why? You are wearing a flak jacket,” he said, speaking to her lifeless body. “That must hurt. Did you suffer? Were you shot in the head?” he asked, sobbing.

22/08/12

Syrian Regime Attacks Multiple

Fronts

#Syrian forces kill at least 31 in Damascus raids

22/08/12

The attacks may have been designed to kill or capture rebel mortar teams who have used the two neighborhoods in recent days to target the city’s Mazzeh military airport, activists said.

The violence is part of a dramatic surge in fighting over the past month in Damascus, which is just one of many fronts President Bashar Assad’s regime is struggling to contain as the rebellion against his rule gains strength. Government forces are also engaged in a major battle for control of the northern city of Aleppo as well as smaller scale operations in the south, east and central regions.

An activist, who only wanted to be identified by the name Bassam for fear of retribution, said 11 people were killed in Kafar Soussa and that as many as 22 tanks stormed the district with about 20 soldiers on foot behind each one. He spoke via Skype from central Damascus.

The British-based activist group Syrian Observatory for Human Rights put the death toll in Kafar Soussa at 12.

Bassam and the observatory also reported heavy government shelling of Nahr Eishah early Wednesday. They said regime forces then conducted house-to-house raids in search of rebels. Bassam said as many as 12 people were killed in Nahr Eishah, while the observatory had no word on casualties.

It was not clear whether those killed in the two areas died in the shelling or later. Other activists, including one reached by Skype in Kafar Soussa, spoke of execution-style killings in both areas.

The activists’ reports could not be independently verified.

Syria’s ongoing civil war has its roots in a mostly peaceful uprising against Assad’s regime that began in March last year. The uprising grew increasingly violent as the regime employed brutal methods to suppress street protests, including the use of live ammunition and the detention and torture of thousands.

The conflict has to date defied all international efforts to end it.

#Syria warns US against intervention, dozens killed in advance on Damascus suburb

21/08/12

Sergey Ponomarev/Associated Press - Syrian Deputy Prime Minister Qadri Jamil, center, and Minister for National Reconciliation Ali Haidar, left, speak during a news conference in Moscow, Tuesday Aug. 21, 2012. Unidentified man at right.

08/21/12 AP

BEIRUT — A Syrian government official warned the United States Tuesday that military intervention in Syria could lead to regional turmoil as regime forces bombed a northern village and stormed a rebel-held Damascus suburb, killing dozens of people, activists said.

The comments came a day after President Barack Obama said the U.S would reconsider its opposition to military involvement in the Syrian civil war if Bashar Assad’s government deploys or uses chemical or biological weapons, describing it as a “red line” for the United States.

Syrian Deputy Prime Minister Qadri Jamil called Obama’s statements “propagandistic threats” made in connection with the U.S. presidential election. But Jamil also said the comments indicate that the West is looking for a pretext to intervene militarily.

He insisted that such intervention would be “impossible” because it would cause the civil war to spread to other countries in the region.

“Those who are contemplating this evidently want to see the crisis expand beyond Syria’s borders,” Jamil told reporters during a visit to Moscow.

The conflict already has spilled over into neighboring Lebanon, where sectarian tensions have risen.

Clashes that broke out Monday night between the two sides in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli killed at least six people and wounded more than 70 in some of the most serious fighting in Lebanon in several months, the Lebanese state-run news agency said. The wounded included nine Lebanese soldiers.

The mostly Sunni city also saw gunbattles in May, when fighting over Syria killed eight people. The latest clashes were between gunmen from the Sunni neighborhood of Jabal Mohsen and the neighboring district of Bab Tabbaneh, which is mostly populated by followers of the Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam.

Assad is a member of Syria’s Alawite minority, while rebels fighting his regime are predominantly Sunnis.

The streets around the two districts were sealed off by roadblocks to keep people away from the line of snipers’ fire, but life went on normally in the rest of the city despite the occasional sound of gunfire.

In Washington, U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said the U.S. was “very concerned” about the spillover effect from Syria.

Heavy fighting also continued in and around Aleppo on Tuesday.

On Monday, veteran Japanese war correspondent Mika Yamamoto became the first foreign journalist to die in the northern Syrian city since clashes between rebels and regime forces erupted there almost a month ago.

Syrian government forces also reportedly captured two other journalists there, including Alhurra TV correspondent Bashar Fahmi and his cameraman Cuneyt Unal.

Japan’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Masaru Sato said Yamamoto, 45, was hit by gunfire while she and a colleague were traveling with rebels from the Free Syrian Army who are fighting the Assad regime.

Yamamoto worked for The Japan Press, an independent TV news provider that specializes in conflict zone coverage.

The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalist said at least 16 journalists have been killed since November while covering Syria, making it “the most dangerous place in the world for journalists.”

A statement from Springfield, Virginia-based Alhurra said the company has not been able to reach its correspondent and his cameraman since they entered Syria on Monday morning.

Most of Tuesday’s fighting appeared centered in Damascus suburbs, which have witnessed a dramatic spike in fighting over the past month.

The Syrian activist group the Local Coordination Committees and a rebel spokesman also said regime troops entered the opposition-held suburb of Moadamiyeh from four points, raiding homes in search of anti-Assad fighters.

The rebel spokesman, who asked to be identified only by his first name Ahmed said three men in their late 20s and early 30s were shot dead execution-style soon after the town fell to regime forces.

He also said 23 fighters from the Free Syrian Army rebel group were killed when government forces stormed the town at dawn.

Later, activists said dozens of bodies were found dumped in a building in the town. The LCC said they appear to have been killed execution-style. But Rami Abdul-Rahman, director of the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said it was not clear whether they were killed in the shelling or had been shot.

The reports could not be independently verified.

Moadamiyeh, west of the capital, Damascus, had been under siege for more than two weeks. Its capture followed days of intense fighting and shelling by government troops.

In northern Syria, an activist who goes by the name Abu al-Hassan said warplanes and helicopters attacked a number of towns and villages north of Aleppo early Tuesday, killing a young boy and another civilian, and damaging homes. Several people also were wounded.

After strafing a number of villages overnight, government fighter jets dropped two bombs on a residential part of the village of Marea, about 30 kilometers (20 miles) north of Aleppo, Abu al-Hassan said via Skype.

One amateur video posted online showed a huge cloud of gray smoke rising over the village, a crater in a rubble-strewn road and two houses with collapsed ceilings. Residents were searching through the rubble for survivors, crying “is anyone there?”

A second video showed a number of people, including a small boy, with serious injuries. The videos could not be independently verified.

Marea is a relatively quiet farming village in the Aleppo countryside that was not known for being a hub of rebel activity, although one rebel group runs a prison in a school there.

Assad’s overstretched forces have found it increasingly difficult to quell the rebel challenge over an ever widening stretch of territory across the country, a sign that the regime’s grip on power is loosening.

The seemingly intractable 17-month-old conflict in Syria that human rights groups say has claimed the lives of more than 20,000 people has defied all international attempts to calm the bloodshed.

U.N. spokesman Martin Nesirky said Lakhdar Brahimi, the new special representative for Syria, will be based at U.N. headquarters in New York when his new job starts on Sept. 1.

Brahimi will be coming to New York later this week to meet with Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and senior U.N. officials, Nesirky said.

Meanwhile, Renesys Corp., a Manchester, N.H., company that studies the structure of the Internet, said a Chinese company is keeping war-torn Syria connected to the Web as other telecommunications companies withdraw.

The Syrian government ultimately controls Internet connection to the outside world but it’s a major route for rebel communications and news from the country as the civil war intensifies.

Hong Kong-based PCCW Ltd. is now carrying most of the Internet traffic to and from Syria, according to Renesys Corp.

Associated Press writers Ben Hubbard in Gaziantep, Turkey, Bassem Mroue, in Tripoli, Lebanon, Lynn Berry in Moscow and Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed to this report.