Syrian troops yesterday fought rebel fighters and shelled their bastions in the country’s two main cities, Damascus and Aleppo, a day after UN envoy Lakhdar Brahimi warned that the conflict threatens world peace.
The fighting in Damascus erupted at dawn and was focused in the northeast suburb of Harasta, while the army shelled the southern suburb of al-Hajar al-Aswad from several directions, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
Regime forces had deployed in force in al-Hajar al-Aswad on Saturday, sparking clashes with rebels that left eight people dead, some of them cut down by sniper fire, the Britain-based Observatory said.
In Aleppo, a child was killed in shelling during the night in the southwest Fardoss neighborhood, the watchdog group said, adding that a media activist with a rebel group was killed elsewhere in the northern city.
Regime forces also pummeled the eastern districts of Hanano, Sakhur and Sukari, where two rebels were killed early yesterday in shelling.
Fighting also broke out between the army and rebels in Jamiyat al-Zahra in the west and in Izaa District, the Observatory said.
Violence has raged in Aleppo, Syria’s commercial capital, since July 20, when regime forces launched an offensive in a bid to drive rebels out of the city.
In Homs Province, a man was killed in shelling in the town of Tal Kalakh, which borders Lebanon, while the town of Krak des Chevaliers also came under shelling, the Observatory said.
Another man was killed by sniper fire in Deir Ezzor, while clashes also broke out in the town of Albu Kamal on the Iraqi border.
The violence followed a bloody day in which 115 people — 71 civilians, 12 rebels and 32 soldiers — were killed nationwide in Syria, according to the Observatory, which gathers its information from a network of activists, medical workers and other sources on the ground.
Brahimi, the UN-Arab League envoy to Syria, warned after meeting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Damascus on Saturday that the worsening conflict in Syria threatens both the region and the world at large.
“The crisis is dangerous and getting worse, and it is a threat to the Syrian people, the region and the world,” said the newly appointed Brahimi, who took over as international envoy to Syria earlier this month from former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan.
The Observatory estimates that more than 27,000 people have been killed since the uprising against al-Assad’s rule erupted in March last year. The UN puts the toll at 20,000.
Through the noise of rushing papers and whirring belts at a print factory in Kyoto, two creators watch their photo essay come to life in broadsheet form — part of an effort to win new audiences in the age of artificial intelligence (AI). Despite the decline of the publishing industry, self-publication and handmade “zine” magazines are growing in popularity in Japan, reflecting the nation’s enduring love of paper in the digital era. While speaking to Agence France-Presse at the plant, his hands black with ink, one of the creators, Kazuma Obara, said: “I think [paper] is a medium that engages all five
‘ABSURD MISTAKE’: The election commission said that there had been a failure to anticipate turnout after 14 polling stations ran short of ballot papers South Korean riot police yesterday cleared protesters from a Seoul polling station after a 35-hour blockade sparked by a shortage of ballot papers during local elections earlier this week. Wednesday’s election was the first nationwide vote since South Korean President Lee Jae-myung took office following the ouster of Yoon Suk-yeol over his short-lived martial law declaration. Lee’s ruling Democratic Party swept most races, but failed to flip the crucial Seoul mayoral seat. The South Korean National Election Commission apologized, blaming a failure to anticipate turnout after 14 polling stations in Seoul ran short of ballot papers. Some polling stations stayed open until 10pm to
France experienced its hottest spring on record, the French weather service said on Tuesday, after an exceptional early heat wave that also broke highs for the season in England and Wales. Meteo-France said the average nationwide temperature over March to May was 13.8°C — about 1.7°C above the norm, and surpassing records set in 2011 and 2020. “The warmest spring since records began in 1900,” it said in a bulletin. All three months were warmer than average, but the onset of an “unprecedented heatwave” late last month pushed the mercury to highs typically seen at the height of the summer. “Our country had never
A Sherpa guide was found crawling to base camp on Mount Everest a week after he went missing and was reunited with his family, who had given up hope he would return. Dawa Sherpa was last seen on Friday last week descending the mountain, but he did not reach base camp even though his client did. The pair were among the last climbers on the mountain as the climbing season came to an end and the route was dismantled. Dawa was located by a cleaning crew on Thursday morning as he was crawling down the snowy slopes around the Khumbu Icefall, just above
RSS