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| This citizen journalism image provided by Aleppo Media Center AMC which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, shows a Syrian man carrying a child's body in the aftermath of a strike by Syrian government, in the neighborhood of Jabal Bedro, in Aleppo, Syria, Tuesday Feb. 19, 2013. The Britain-based activist group Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and the Aleppo Media Center reported several dead in the attack late Monday night, saying the strike appeared to be from a ground-to-ground missile. |
BEIRUT (AP)
-- A Syrian missile strike leveled a block of buildings in an
impoverished district of Aleppo on Tuesday, killing at least 33 people,
almost half of them children, anti-regime activists said.
Many
were trapped under the rubble of destroyed houses and piles of concrete
and the death toll could still rise further if more bodies are
uncovered.
The apparent ground-to-ground
missile attack struck a quiet area that has been held by anti-regime
fighters for many months, a reminder of how difficult it is for the
opposition to defend territory in the face of the regime's far superior
weaponry.
In the capital Damascus, state-run
news agency SANA said two mortars exploded near one of President Bashar
Assad's palaces. It dealt a symbolic blow to the embattled leader, who
has tried to maintain an image as the head of a functioning state even
as rebels edge closer to the heart of his seat of power.
No casualties were reported and it was unclear whether Assad was in the palace. He has two others in the city.
The
attack was the first confirmed strike close to a presidential palace
and another sign that the civil war is seeping into areas of the capital
once considered safe.
"This is a clear
message to the regime that nowhere is safe from now on," said Khaled
al-Shami, an activist in Damascus reached via Skype. "The fact that they
had to announce it means they can no longer hide what is happening in
Damascus."
The news service, SANA, said
"terrorists" fired the rounds that struck near the southern wall of the
Tishreen palace in the capital's northwestern Muhajireen district. The
government refers to anti-government fighters as "terrorists."
Assad
often uses the Tishrin palace to receive dignitaries and as a guest
house for foreign officials during their visits to Syria.
The
capital has largely been spared the violence that has left other cities
in ruins. For weeks, however, rebels who have established footholds in
the suburbs have been pushing closer to the heart of Damascus from the
eastern and southern outskirts, clashing with government forces.
Rebels
have claimed to fire rockets at presidential palaces in Damascus
before, but this strike was the first confirmed by the government.
In
the northern city of Aleppo, anti-regime activists said a missile
strike flattened a stretch of buildings and killed at least 33 people.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said they included
14 children and five women.
Amateur videos
posted online showed scores of men combing through the rubble of
destroyed buildings in the poor Jabal Badro neighborhood to find those
trapped beneath it.
"Allahu Akbar," or God is great, they shout as a group of men lift up a body wrapped in a pink blanket.
One
man swung a sledgehammer to break through concrete while a bulldozer
hauled off rubble. In another video, a man covered in grey dust
struggled under pile of concrete.
The videos appeared authentic and corresponded with other Associated Press reporting.
The Jabal Badro district has been under rebel control for months and had been largely quiet until Tuesday's attack.
The
strike was the latest salvo in a fierce and bloody 7-month battle for
Syria's largest city and economic center, a key prize in the civil war.
Rebels
have slowly expanded their control over parts of Aleppo since first
storming it last summer. The city is now divided between rebel- and
regime-controlled zones.
Rebel forces have
been trying for weeks to capture Aleppo's international airport and two
military air bases nearby, while the government is bringing in
reinforcements from areas it still controls further south and regularly
bombing rebel areas from the air.
The activist
group Aleppo Media Center said more than 40 were killed and published
the names of 21 off them on its Facebook page. There was no way to
reconcile the differing tolls.
Both the
Observatory and AMC groups said the strike appeared to be from a
ground-to-ground missile. The Syrian government did not comment.
Activist
Mohammed al-Khatib of the AMC said via Skype that the death toll could
rise further as residents search the site for more bodies.
"There are still lots of people missing from the area," he said.
He
said the strike appeared to be from a large ground-to-ground missile
because of the scale of the destruction and because residents did not
report hearing a fighter jet, as they usually do during airstrikes.
Although
Assad's forces regularly shell and launch airstrikes on areas held by
anti-government rebels, their use of large missiles has been limited.
In
December, U.S. and NATO officials confirmed rebel reports that Syrian
forces had fired Scud missiles at rebel areas in the north. That was the
last confirmed use of such weapons.
Also
Tuesday, rebels clashed with government forces near Aleppo's
international airport and the Kweiras military airport nearby, the
Observatory said. Clashes have halted air traffic to the two airports
for weeks, since rebels launched their offensive to try to capture them.
The
Observatory also reported government shelling, airstrikes and clashes
between government forces and rebels east and south of Damascus.
Seven
people were killed in rocket strikes on the eastern suburb of Kafar
Batna and five died in a car bombing in Jdeidat al-Fadel, southwest of
the capital, it said.
The U.N. says some
70,000 have been killed since the uprising against Assad's
authoritarian rule began in March 2011. The violence has spread
humanitarian suffering across much of Syria.
U.N.
humanitarian chief Valerie Amos said the number of people in need of
humanitarian assistance has quadrupled since June last year.
"Just
in the last two months, over 250,000 people have fled into neighboring
countries. These numbers, they are not sustainable," she said at a press
conference in Geneva.
The U.N. says more than
870,000 Syrians have fled to neighboring countries since the beginning
of the conflict, with the majority seeking refuge in Jordan, Turkey and
Lebanon.
The United States announced Tuesday
it was providing an addition $19 million in humanitarian assistance in
response to urgent needs in Syria.
The
announcement made in Geneva by Nancy Lindborg, assistant administrator
for the U.S. Agency for International Development, brings the United
States' total contribution of humanitarian support in response to this
crisis to nearly $385 million.
On January 29,
President Barack Obama announced an additional $155 million to help
those suffering inside Syria and refugees in the neighboring countries.
The
U.N. warned in a report released Monday that contaminated water and
poor hygiene in populated areas have led to an increase in waterborne
diseases such as Hepatitis A and Typhoid.
The
World Health Organization said the health situation on the ground is
rapidly deteriorating, with an estimated 2,500 people in the
northeastern Deir el-Zour province infected with Typhoid and 14,000
cases of Leishmania, a parasite responsible for an infectious and often
debilitating disease, in Hassakeh province.
