A Free Syrian Army fighter prepares to fire a RPG as a Syrian Army tank shell hits a building across a street during a heavy fighting in Salaheddine neighborhood of central Aleppo. (Reuters)
Syrian activists claimed that a large number of defected officers have reached Jordan late Wednesday through the southern province of Deraa with the help of the Free Syrian Army.
Among the defectors are one brigadier general and four colonels, the activists said, without giving an exact number for the “large number” of defectors it reported.
The activists also said that heavy clashes ensued near the Jordanian-Syrian borders.
Damascus clashes
Syrian forces backed by helicopter gunships and tanks launched a deadly assault on parts of Damascus on Wednesday, activists said, as the regime battles to stomp out rebel resistance in the capital.
At least 37 people were reported killed in Damascus alone, a day after a top minister hinted that the embattled regime was ready to discuss President Bashar al-Assad’s exit in any talks on ending the brutal 17-month conflict.
Head of FSA, Colonel Riaydh al-Asa’ad, said that the Syrian regime has lost control for around 80 percent of Syrian territories, and its heavy use of helicopters show its failure on ground.
Observers have highlighted FSA transformation when its military operations are no longer concerned mainly to repel attacks from the Syrian regime forces, but new FSA attacks have targeted the regime’s security forces, check points and military airports.
Activists on posted a video on Wednesday showing FSA displaying captured armored vehicles and tanks from Assad regime, thereby signaling new heights for the rebel army.
Meanwhile the opposition Syrian National Council urged the U.N. to investigate reports that dozens of people were killed during shelling and in summary executions in Maadamiyat al-Sham, a town west of Damascus.
The SNC described what happened as a “brutal crime” and urged the Arab League to hold an emergency meeting to discuss “war crimes” perpetrated by the regime in Syria.”
No safe havens for Syria
Security Council divisions would prevent the creation of any safe haven in Syria for the growing number of refugees from the country’s civil war, a top U.N. official said Wednesday.
U.N. emergency relief coordinator Valerie Amos said about 1.2 million people have taken refuge in schools and other public buildings in Syria and growing numbers were heading for other countries to escape the conflict.
But she said the objections of President Bashar al-Assad’s government and divisions within the 15-nation U.N. Security Council would prohibit the creation of safe havens as called for by Turkey’s Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu.
“The Syrian authorities themselves have said that they are against the creation of camps inside Syria,” Amos told reporters, giving an account of a trip to Syria and Lebanon.
“Secondly if you create any kind of camp or safe zone within Syria you have to have some kind of way of making them secure. They have to be policed in some way.
“That requires a Security Council resolution. I do not see an appetite in the Security Council for any kind of resolution to enable that to happen.”
Earlier this week, Davutoglu called on the United Nations to set up camps inside Syria as he warned his country could not cope with the rising numbers fleeing the 17-month conflict.
Talks inside the Security Council on Syria have come to a virtual standstill following three vetoes by Russia and China of resolutions on the conflict, which activists say has left more than 23,000 dead.
France is organizing an August 30 ministerial meeting at the Security Council on the humanitarian impact of the civil war. It is not yet clear who will attend, though Turkey’s foreign minister is expected to be there.
