Independent voices from the TWT Communities
Iran and Syria condemned a U.S. plan to assist rebels fighting to topple President Bashar Assad on Saturday and signaled the Syrian leader intends to stay in power at least until 2014 presidential elections.
Rebels backed by captured tanks launched a fresh offensive on a government complex housing a police academy near the northern city of Aleppo on Sunday, while the government hit back with airstrikes to try to protect the strategic installation, activists said.
The battle for Syria's second-largest airport intensified Saturday as government troops tried to reverse recent strategic gains the rebels have made in the northeast in their quest to topple President Bashar Assad.
Syrian rebels knocked down army defenses and moved in on the country's second-largest airport Wednesday, reportedly killing more than 40 soldiers and bringing them closer to what could be their biggest conquest since the beginning of the civil war.
Rebels captured a small military base near Aleppo on Tuesday and stormed another in the same area that protects a major airport, a day after seizing Syria's largest dam.
Syrian government troops battled rebels in several areas outside Damascus on Sunday while regime warplanes bombed opposition-held areas around the capital, including an airstrike on one village that killed at least seven people, activists said.
Islamic militants seeking to topple President Bashar Assad took full control of a strategic northwestern air base Friday in a significant blow to government forces, seizing helicopters, tanks and multiple rocket launchers, activists said.
Rebels attacked a sprawling air base in northern Syria on Wednesday as the opposition expanded its offensive on military airports in an attempt to sideline a major weapon in the hands of President Bashar Assad's forces.
Syrian troops and rebels fought Tuesday in suburbs of Damascus as well as near Aleppo's airport, stopping all flights in and out of the northern city, activists and state media said.
Syrian fighter jets bombed a Palestinian refugee camp in Damascus Tuesday for the second time this week after rebels made significant advances, seizing large areas within the camp.
Syrian fighter jets bombed a Palestinian refugee camp in Damascus on Tuesday for the second time this week after rebels made significant advances, seizing large areas within the camp, activists said.
Internet service went down Thursday across Syria and international flights were canceled at the Damascus airport when a road near the facility was closed by heavy fighting in the country's civil war.
Syrian rebels on Monday captured a hydroelectric dam on the Euphrates River in the country's north after days of heavy clashes, carting off boxes of ammunition and notching the latest in a string of recent strategic advances for opposition fighters, activists said.
Syrian rebels captured a helicopter base just outside Damascus Sunday in what an activist called a "blow to the morale of the regime" near President Bashar Assad's seat of power.
Syrian rebels strengthened their hold Thursday on an oil-rich province bordering Iraq, activists said, capturing a key military base that was considered one of the last bastions for President Bashar Assad's loyalists in the strategic region.
The rebels tried to storm the Mannagh base late Monday, but the regime deployed fighter jets to the area, pounding rebel positions around the base, which is near Syria's border with Turkey, Mr. Abdul-Rahman said.
Bomb tears through Damascus; 14 people killed, 103 wounded →
Three of the soldiers were wounded and evacuated to a hospital in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, he said.
Syria, Iran rebuff West, say Assad to remain in power till 2014 →
