Furious combat raged around strategic airports in northern Syria yesterday, the day after the UN gave a staggering toll of 60,000 dead in the country’s 21-month civil war.
Insurgents besieged troops on the perimeter of the international airport in Aleppo, the hard fought-over main city of Syria’s north, and a military airbase in Idlib Province, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
Aleppo’s critical civilian transportation hub has been closed since Tuesday after repeated attacks by rebels, according to an airport official, who said it would reopen as soon as the army regained control of the surrounding areas.
Photo: Reuters
Rebels holding much of the area surrounding Aleppo were targeted by government shelling overnight in the city’s Sakhur District and in the towns of Marea and Aazaz farther north near the Turkish border.
Meanwhile, hundreds of fighters with two hardcore Islamist rebel groups, al-Nusra Front and Ahrar al-Sham, fought soldiers around the Taftanaz airbase in Idlib, the British-based Observatory said, adding that air strikes were blasting rebel positions.
The rebels had remotely detonated a bomb at one of the airport’s gates the day before, but were pushed back by the army, according to both the Observatory and a military source inside the base.
The military source said that clashes outside the base had gone on non-stop for more than 48 hours, and there had been a large number of rebel casualties.
Three rebels were killed in combat with troops around the Deir Ezzor military airport, as fighting also broke out in the nearby provincial capital in the east of the country.
Near Damascus, warplanes carried out air strikes and ground troops launched rockets on the southwest towns of Daraya and Moadamiyet al-Sham in fresh attempts to wrest back control. In the town of Mleha, just east of Damascus, bodies were being recovered from a service station hit by a regime air strike on Wednesday.
The toll from that attack was not yet known, but the Observatory said at least 12 bodies were recovered, several of them rebels. The Local Coordination Committees, a grassroots network of activists, estimated that at least 50 people were killed.
The Observatory said 219 people died on Wednesday nationwide: 115 civilians, 57 rebels and 47 soldiers.
The overall death toll of the 21-month Syrian conflict has unsettled observers.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay on Wednesday called it “truly shocking,” as she revealed a vetted UN tally nearly a third higher than that previously compiled by the Observatory.
“The number of casualties is much higher than we expected, and is truly shocking,” she said in a statement.
“Given there has been no let-up in the conflict since the end of November, we can assume that more than 60,000 people have been killed by the beginning of 2013,” Pillay said.
The average number of deaths recorded in recent months was five times that registered in the middle of 2011, reflecting intensifying viciousness and the regime’s use of air strikes.
Pillay said in her statement that “this massive loss of life could have been avoided” if the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad had not chosen the “ruthless suppression” of what initially were peaceful protests.
Meanwhile, a freelance US reporter who contributed videos to Agence France-Presse (AFP) in recent months was kidnapped in Syria six weeks ago and has been missing since, his family revealed on Wednesday.
James Foley, 39, an experienced war reporter who has covered other conflicts, was seized by armed men in Idlib on Nov. 22, witnesses say.
No group has claimed responsibility for the abduction.
Foley’s family, which had earlier asked media groups not to report the abduction in the hope that a low profile would assist in efforts to free him, broke their silence on Wednesday to reveal his plight.
“We want Jim to come safely home, or at least we need to speak with him to know he’s okay,” said his father, John Foley.
The US government has signed defense cooperation agreements with Japan and the Philippines to boost the deterrence capabilities of countries in the first island chain, a report by the National Security Bureau (NSB) showed. The main countries on the first island chain include the two nations and Taiwan. The bureau is to present the report at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee tomorrow. The US military has deployed Typhon missile systems to Japan’s Yamaguchi Prefecture and Zambales province in the Philippines during their joint military exercises. It has also installed NMESIS anti-ship systems in Japan’s Okinawa
TRAGEDY STRIKES TAIPEI: The suspect died after falling off a building after he threw smoke grenades into Taipei Main Station and went on a killing spree in Zhongshan A 27-year-old suspect allegedly threw smoke grenades in Taipei Main Station and then proceeded to Zhongshan MRT Station in a random killing spree that resulted in the death of the suspect and two other civilians, and seven injured, including one in critical condition, as of press time last night. The suspect, identified as a man surnamed Chang Wen (張文), allegedly began the attack at Taipei Main Station, the Taipei Fire Department said, adding that it received a report at 5:24pm that smoke grenades had been thrown in the station. One man in his 50s was rushed to hospital after a cardiac arrest
‘WIN-WIN’: The Philippines, and central and eastern European countries are important potential drone cooperation partners, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung said Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) in an interview published yesterday confirmed that there are joint ventures between Taiwan and Poland in the drone industry. Lin made the remark in an exclusive interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper). The government-backed Taiwan Excellence Drone International Business Opportunities Alliance and the Polish Chamber of Unmanned Systems on Wednesday last week signed a memorandum of understanding in Poland to develop a “non-China” supply chain for drones and work together on key technologies. Asked if Taiwan prioritized Poland among central and eastern European countries in drone collaboration, Lin
ON ALERT: Taiwan’s partners would issue warnings if China attempted to use Interpol to target Taiwanese, and the global body has mechanisms to prevent it, an official said China has stationed two to four people specializing in Taiwan affairs at its embassies in several democratic countries to monitor and harass Taiwanese, actions that the host nations would not tolerate, National Security Bureau (NSB) Director-General Tsai Ming-yen (蔡明彥) said yesterday. Tsai made the comments at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee, which asked him and Minister of National Defense Wellington Koo (顧立雄) to report on potential conflicts in the Taiwan Strait and military preparedness. Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Michelle Lin (林楚茵) expressed concern that Beijing has posted personnel from China’s Taiwan Affairs Office to its
RSS