Syria - Assad Drops Parachute Bombs on Damascus 2-20-13 Hamouria Area

Syria - Assad Drops Bombs on Hammouriyah Suburb of Damascus 2-20-13 Hmouria - Hammouriyah - Hamouria
20 2 Hammouriyah Damascus أوغاريت حمورية ريف دمشق _ هااااااااااااام جدا _ هام صواريخ الحقد الأسدي وهي تسقط بالمظلات.
Summary of Events

Regime forces continued to fire more Scud missiles on opposition-held areas in the north in a day where the rebels carried out a series of attacks on regime forces and threatened to strike Hezbollah positions inside Lebanon.

A Scud missile fired from a missile base in Damascus fell in the northern town of Tal Abyad, just seven kilometers away from the Turkish border. Meanwhile, the number of deaths of yesterday's late missile attack on the neighborhood of Jabal babdro in Aleppo city has risen to 47 including 15 children and seven women, in addition to leaving dozens more people injured and dozens of houses destroyed.

Several massacres were perpetrated by regime forces in Damascus and its suburbs today. The indiscriminate airstrikes and rocket shelling left at least eight people dead in the eastern district of Jobar, 12 in the provincial town of Douma and ten more in Kaferbatna. A car bomb explosion left at least five people dead and many more wounded in the town of Jdaydat al-Fadel. Regime indiscriminate shelling also left seven people dead in the neighborhoods of Myasar, Karm Jazmati and Masaken Hanano in Aleppo city.

Regime forces and loyalist militiamen stormed the neighborhood of Mokhayam in Homs and fired indiscriminately on civilians thus leaving at least three people dead and many others wounded. Two more bodies were pulled out of the Orontes River near the Homs suburb of Dar Kabeera.

Today's death toll reached more than 185. Regime forces and loyalist militiamen killed at least 143 people, including 27 children, 12 women and 12 rebel fighters, whereas the rebels killed more than 42 soldiers and militiamen.

The Free Syrian Army threatened to carry out attacks against positions inside Lebanon if it doesn't stop its attacks on Syrian villages. "If the Hezbollah shelling on the Syrian land, on the villages and unarmed civilians, from inside the Lebanese land does not stop in the next 48 hours from the release of this statement, we will take matters in our own hands to respond to the source of the shooting and stop it inside Lebanese territory," the statement said.

The rebels fired a number of mortar shells at one of Assad's palaces in Damascus. They targeted Tishrin Palace, a guest house for foreign official visits. The attack which only caused material damage triggered a major security alert in the surrounding area.

Later today, the rebels said they seized control of the strategically-important neighborhood of Qarabis in Homs city as well as the village of Tal Alo and one of Syria's main granaries, southeast of Qamishli city in the northeastern province of Hasaka.

The rebels carried out their first military operation in the mainly Alawite province of Tartous. They attacked the border post of Arida Ghabriya with Lebanon, using RPG's and heavy machine guns and leaving a number of security forces dead and wounded.

The battle raged for Aleppo's international airport and the nearby airbase of Nerab as the rebels announced the beginning of the second stage of a major offensive to take over the largest airbases in the north of Syria. The rebels took full control of two villages near the government-held town of Khanaser in the southeastern suburb of Aleppo where government reinforcement convoys are making their way from Damascus in a bid to break the siege imposed by the rebels on the airports.

In Daraa, the rebels destroyed four military tanks and armored vehicles and killed 25 soldiers as they thwarted a ground assault on the Daraa al-Babal district in Daraa city as well as on its provincial towns of Baser al-Harir and Tayba. They also shot down the second fighter jet in less than a week in the Homs suburb of Rastan. Meanwhile, some 50 soldiers including high ranking officers defected to the rebels' side in the suburb of Damascus.

Damage to infrastructure across Syria after nearly two years of conflict is estimated to cost $11 billion, Local Administration Minister Omar Ghalawanji said yesterday.

More than four million people inside Syria are in desperate need of aid, up sharply from 2.5 million in September, the UN's humanitarian agency said today.

Typhoid has broken out in an opposition-held region of Syria due to people drinking contaminated water from the Euphrates River, the World Health Organization (WHO) said today. An estimated 2,500 people in northeastern Deir Azzour province are infected with the contagious disease, which causes diarrhea and can be fatal, the United Nations agency said.
2-19-13 news updated copied from SRCC: http://www.strescom.org/briefings/dai...