Monday, May 6, 2013

'Israel Rocket Strike' On Syria Military Site


Syria says Israeli air strikes against three targets near Damascus "open the door to all possibilities".
Information Minister Omran Zoabi spoke after an emergency cabinet meeting organised to respond to the attack, believed to have targeted missiles bound for Hezbollah.
The rockets hit a military research centre in Jamraya on the outskirts of the capital in the early hours of this morning.
The building was the target of an earlier Israeli strike in January and Israeli radio has reported the latest attack has been confirmed by a senior security official.
A Western intelligence source said "stores of Fateh-110 missiles that were in transit from Iran to Hezbollah" were the target.
Video footage uploaded online by activists shows a huge ball of fire rising into the night sky.
Unverified video claims to show explosions in Damascus
More of the unverified footage uploaded by activists
Mr Zoabi accused Israel of working with "terrorist groups" and although he did not hint at a concrete course of action, he said it was Damascus's duty to protect the state from any "domestic or foreign attack through all available means".
Sunday's attack is the third Israeli assault this year on Syrian soil. Previous strikes on Syria by Israel have not elicited a military response from Syria or its allies Iran and Lebanon's Hezbollah.
Syria's Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal al Mekdad told CNN the strike was "a declaration of war" by Israel and represented an alliance between Islamic terrorists and Israel.
Iran has condemned the Israeli attack and urged countries in the region to stand against the action, the Fars news agency reported.
Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not mention the strikes at a news conference, but spoke pointedly about his commitment to keeping Israel secure.
Protesters gather in Banias, Syria, to campaign against the regime
Protests in Banias at the beginning of the uprising in 2011
Meanwhile, hundreds of families are fleeing a Syrian coastal area where activists say government troops have massacred nearly 200, many of them women and children.
Opponents of Bashar al Assad's regime say that fighters loyal to the President carried out two massacres on Saturday night and on Thursday in a Sunni Muslim area driven by a policy of ethnic cleansing.
Activists posted a video online of the bodies of 10 people it said were killed in Ras al Nabaa in the city of Banias, in an overnight attack.
The activists said half of the victims were children and that the number of deaths could be as high as 60.
It comes just two days after pro-Assad militias are alleged to have killed as many as 100 Sunnis in the nearby village of Baida.
Amateur video showed a man and at least three children dead inside a room.
A destroyed car is seen on a street lined with buildings damaged by what activists said was shelling by forces loyal to Syria's President Assad in Homs
Syria's crisis has claimed the lives of an estimated 70,000 people
A baby had burned legs and its body was covered in blood. Next to him was a young girl whose face had been deformed after apparently being hit with sharp metal.
Other footage from activists showed entire families killed in their beds. A dead woman is seen cradling a child in her arms and two toddlers lying next to them.
The videos have not been independently verified.
The crisis in Syria, which began in March 2011 with pro-democracy protests and later turned into a civil war that has killed an estimated 70,000 people, has largely evolved along sectarian lines.
The Sunni majority forms the backbone of the rebellion, while Mr Assad's minority Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam, anchors the regime's security services and the military's officer corps.
Other minorities, such as Christians, largely support Mr Assad or are standing on the sidelines, fearing the regime's collapse would bring about a more Islamist rule.
It has been estimated as many as 4,000 people are fleeing from the predominantly Sunni southern parts of the Mediterranean city of Banias amid fears of further large-scale killings.
The US has condemned the attack on Thursday. State Department spokeswoman Jennifer Psaki said: "We strongly condemn atrocities against the civilian population and reinforce our solidarity with the Syrian people."
She added: "The United States is appalled by horrific reports that more than 100 people were killed May 2 in gruesome attacks on the coastal town of Bayda, Syria.

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