Syria: Rebels claim helicopter downing

28 Aug 2012, 7:07 am   -   Source: AFP
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Syrian rebels claimed they shot down an army helicopter during fierce fighting in Damascus on Monday, saying it was to avenge the 'massacre' of over 330 people.

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Syrian rebels claimed they shot down an army helicopter during fierce fighting in Damascus on Monday, saying it was to avenge the 'massacre' of over 330 people in the town of Daraya blamed on regime forces.

State television said the aircraft crashed near a mosque in the eastern district of Qaboon, where activists reported shelling, heavy fire by combat helicopters and clashes between government troops and Free Syrian Army rebels.

"It was in revenge for the Daraya massacre," Omar al-Qabooni, spokesman for the FSA's Badr battalion in Damascus told AFP, adding that rebels had found the body of the pilot after the helicopter plummeted to the ground in a ball of fire.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported intensified shelling by government forces after the helicopter came down in many areas of east Damascus where anti-regime sentiment is strong.

At least 35 people were killed, including children, the Observatory said, out of a nationwide death toll of 64 on Monday.

The FSA had previously said it shot down a Syrian warplane two weeks ago in the eastern province of Deir Ezzor and captured its pilot, but the claims cannot be independently confirmed.

The assault on the northeast of the capital was unleashed a day after opposition activists accused President Bashar al-Assad's regime of a gruesome new massacre in Daraya, southwest of the capital.

The Observatory said Monday that 334 bodies had now been found in the Sunni Muslim town after what activists described as brutal five-day onslaught of shelling, summary executions and house-to-house raids by pro-government forces.

The White House said the reports of the Daraya massacre were the latest evidence of Assad's "wanton disregard for human life," while Britain said it would be "an atrocity on a new scale" and the EU said it was "totally unacceptable."

Grisly videos issued by opposition activists showed dozens of charred and bloodied bodies lined up in broad daylight in a graveyard in Daraya, and others lying wall-to-wall in rooms in a mosque.

State media said the operation had "purified terrorist remnants" in Daraya, while pro-government television Al-Dunia said "terrorists" had carried out the killings.

Government troops launched the offensive last Tuesday in a bid to crush insurgents who have regrouped in the southwestern outskirts of Damascus after the regime claimed to have retaken most of the capital late last month.

And Assad vowed Sunday that he would not change course in the face of what he charged was a "conspiracy" by Western and regional powers against Syria, which has been convulsed by 17 months of bloodshed.

"The Syrian people will not allow this conspiracy to achieve its objectives" and will defeat it "at any price," Assad said at a meeting with a top official from Iran, Syria's chief regional ally.

Assad, head of an Alawite-led regime in the majority Sunni Muslim country, has since March last year been using deadly force to smother a popular uprising that has escalated into an armed insurgency.

Human rights groups have accused the regime of committing many atrocities during the conflict, and a UN panel said earlier this month it was guilty of crimes against humanity.

As the violence escalates, the regime has been abandoned by several high-profile figures but analysts say its inner core is intact and that Assad  still has support from many in the Christian community and among certain sectors of the Sunni population.

Activists say around 25,000 people have been killed since March last year, while the United Nations says at least 200,000 people have fled to neighbouring countries and another 2.5 million are in need inside Syria.

Underscoring the growing humanitarian crisis, Turkey, which is struggling to cope with an influx of 80,000 refugees, said another 9,000 were now massed at the border awaiting for more camps to open.

Jordan and the UN Children's Fund appealed for financial aid to cope with the refugee exodus.

Fighting also erupted in other flashpoints on Monday, with the Observatory reporting shelling by government forces in the northern city of Aleppo and areas of the central city of Homs that have been besieged for over two months.

Despite their far superior firepower, government forces are struggling to defeat rebels who have built strongholds in many parts of the country, particularly the once-thriving commercial hub of Aleppo.

August is already the deadliest single month of the conflict with at least 4,000 people killed, according to the Observatory, and the violence escalating as the UN Security Council appears powerless to act.

Iran, Damascus's staunch ally which has been kept out of international efforts to end the bloodshed, said this week it is planning to submit a plan to end the conflict to a Non-Aligned Movement summit it is hosting from Thursday.

Syria's National Reconciliation Minister Ali Haidar, in Tehran for preparatory meetings for the summit, insisted that calls for Assad to step down are "completely unacceptable".

But in Germany, opposition activists said they have drafted a road map for a post-Assad future, drawing on examples from other states that moved to democracy such as South Africa.

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