Assad's forces push back rebels in Syria's Alawite mountains

 

By Dominic Evans

BEIRUT |(Reuters) - Syrian army and militia troops loyal to President Bashar al-Assad have pushed back a rebel offensive in the mountain heartlands of his Alawite sect, officials and activists said on Monday, after days of heavy fighting and aerial bombardment.

The assault by Islamist rebels on the northern edges of the Alawite mountains overlooking the Mediterranean drove hundreds of Alawite villagers out to the coast and marked a major challenge to Assad's reassertion of power over central Syria.
But the Syrian president, battling a two-year uprising which has descended into a devastating civil war, sent reinforcements to the rugged area of northern Latakia to repel the attack.

Syria's Assad exempts reservists from loan payments to aid morale

BEIRUT | (Reuters) - Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has exempted thousands of army reservists called up during the civil war from paying debt installments and late fines during their service, the state news agency SANA said on Wednesday.

The decree was likely meant to boost soldier morale and discourage defections at a time of great strain almost two and half years into a shattering civil war that has seen Islamist-led rebels seize large tracts of Syria.
The law "postpones financial installments for (reservists) with public banks who joined the military reserve service until the end of the service ... (and all late payment) fines due over the period of service will be exempted," SANA said.
Assad's forces are stretched thin across the country as the opposition has taken further ground. Fleeing reservists say morale is low among troops and that men are virtually imprisoned in their barracks by officers who fear they will defect or flee.
The International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) says the Syrian army's strength has been cut roughly in half to around 110,000 men due to a combination of defections, desertions and battlefield losses.
In March 2012, authorities tightened restrictions on men of military age leaving the country to prevent reservists from fleeing.
Since then, Assad has relied on fighters from the Lebanese Shi'ite Muslim militant group Hezbollah and pro-government Syrian militia to back up army operations.
The revolt started in 2011 with peaceful protests demanding democratic reforms from a family-based leadership that has ruled since Assad's father, Hafez, took power in 1970.
Since then, the rebellion has grown into a full-scale civil war with sectarian overtones. Most rebels are drawn from the Sunni Muslim majority, while Assad commands the loyalty of many in his Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam, and other minorities, who fear retribution if he falls.
According to the United Nations, 100,000 people have been killed in the conflict - by far the bloodiest of the Arab Spring uprisings - and 1.9 million refugees have fled to neighboring countries such as Turkey and Jordan.
(Reporting by Oliver Holmes; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

President Bashar al-Assad shared the "iftar" meal with political and religious figures Sunday. SANA

President Bashar al-Assad shared the "iftar" meal during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan with political and religious figures Sunday, praising Syrians for supporting the army, state news agency SANA said.
Assad "joined an iftar (evening) meal... with prominent figures in Syrian society including party-affiliated and independent politicians, as well as Muslim and Christian clerics, syndicates, unions and civil society members," SANA said.
At the gathering, the president praised the Syrian people for "standing as one with the armed forces to defend Syria and its resources."
The UN says more than 100,000 people have been killed in Syria's civil war, which broke out in March 2011 after the regime unleashed a brutal crackdown against widespread protests calling for political change.
The government has consistently blamed the violence in Syria on foreign-backed "terrorist" groups.
[AFP]
 

From the official Syrian presidency Instagram account.
Asma al-Assad, the Syrian First Lady, chats to volunteers from Melody of Life while preparing an Iftar dinner for families.[Al jazeera]
 

Thirty killed in heavy fighting in Syrian mountains

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian rebels battled forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad in the Jabal Akrad mountains overlooking the Mediterranean on Sunday and a monitoring group said at least 30 people were killed.

Video footage showed fighters identified as members of an al Qaeda-linked Islamist brigade waving from the roof of an army tower in the village of Barouda, one of several Alawite villages attacked by the rebels on Sunday.
The mainly Sunni Muslim rebels are battling to overthrow Assad, whose minority Alawite sect is an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam, in a civil war which erupted two years ago when mainly peaceful protests against his rule were put down with force.
Assad, with support from Iran and Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas, has gained ground in recent months from the rebel fighters who are backed by regional Sunni Muslim powers but remain largely outgunned by his army.
The anti-Assad Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 12 rebels and 19 pro-Assad fighters - including soldiers and members of his militia known as the National Defense Army - were killed in Sunday's fighting in the mountains of east Latakia province.
A source in Latakia said the fighting started at dawn and that the rebels, based in the town of Salma, attacked 10 Alawite villages.
Ambulance sirens, punctuated by the sound of bombardment and government air raids on Salma, could be heard throughout the day, he said.
Further south, in Homs, the army launched artillery fire on remaining rebel-held areas of the city, a week after capturing the rebel district of Khaldiya - its latest victory after gains around Damascus and in the Lebanese border region near Homs.
Rebels say they need more foreign military support to reverse their military setbacks, arguing that Assad's military backing from Iran and Hezbollah has turned the tide of the war.
Syrian state media said on Sunday that Iran's new President Hassan Rouhani told Damascus that ties would remain strong.
Rouhani "stressed the Islamic Republic of Iran's determination to strengthen its relations with Syria and stand together in the face of all challenges," SANA news agency said.
"No power in the world can destabilize or undermine the deep-rooted, historic and strategic relations between the two friendly peoples and countries," it quoted him as telling Syrian Prime Minister Wael al-Halki during his visit to Tehran to attend Rouhani's swearing-in ceremony.
(Reporting by Dominic Evans; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

Syrian airstrike kills 9 near border with Lebanon

 By BARBARA SURK
Associated Press

BEIRUT (AP) -- Syrian warplanes struck targets near the border with Lebanon on Saturday, killing at least nine people in the latest attack along the volatile border, the Lebanese state-run news agency and security officials said.

The warplanes targeted the rebel-held town of Yabroud inside Syria, just across from Lebanese villages housing Syrians who fled a government offensive in June, a Lebanese security official from the eastern Bekaa region said. Both sides in the Syrian civil war have allies and supply lines in Lebanon.

The official said the victims included six members of the same family, while 16 people were wounded. He spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.

Also on Saturday, rebels captured an arms depot near Damascus, seizing weapons and ammunition from the regime, activists said.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that militants from the al-Qaida-affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra group led the assault on the depot in Qalamun district north of the capital. Militants seized caches of ammunition, rockets and anti-tank missiles, the Observatory said.

It was a rare battlefield success by the rebels in recent months. The government has been on the offensive in the country's heartland and has retaken territory, although rebels are sometimes reported to overrun military facilities and villages.

The Observatory relies on reports from a network of informants on the ground.

Syria's main opposition coalition meanwhile urged the release of a Catholic priest who disappeared Monday while visiting a rebel-held city dominated by Islamic groups in the country's northeast. The Western-backed Syrian National Coalition said it was "deeply concerned" over the disappearance of Paolo Dall'Oglio, an Italian Jesuit priest and a well-known figure in Syria.

"We urge all parties involved in the disappearance of Father Paolo to immediately come forward and release him," the coalition said in a statement released in Istanbul on Saturday. It described the priest as a "wise man of peace and compassion" who engaged in interfaith dialogue with Muslims and forged close ties with people all over Syria.

Activists said Dall'Oglio went to Raqqa to meet with al-Qaida-linked militants. The city, which fell to the rebels in early March, has seen tensions between the hard-liners and more moderate rebel groups over how to administer it.

Both rebels and pro-regime forces have abducted political foes, members of rival sects and wealthy families around Syria and others, including foreign journalists, to settle scores or for ransom.

Dall'Oglio is a critic of the regime of President Bashar Assad, which the rebels are fighting to overthrow. A year ago, the government expelled him from Syria, where he had lived for 30 years.

Cardinal Leonardo Sandri, in charge of the Holy See's office dealing with Eastern Churches, has expressed `'closeness in prayer" to Dall'Oglio's fellow Jesuits over the `'persistence of the uncertainty of the situation," the Vatican said Saturday.

Sandri's office said it was praying that `'the war ends and peace is given back to beloved Syria and all the peoples of the Middle East."

Dall'Oglio is the third Christian cleric believed to have been kidnapped in northern Syria this year. In April, two Orthodox bishops were abducted and have not been heard from since their kidnapping. No group has publically claimed it is holding the clerics.

The statement said Sandri's office also recalled the `'absolute silence that weighs on the fate of the two (Orthodox) bishops."

More than 100,000 people have been killed since the beginning of the Syrian uprising in March 2011.

---

Associated Press writer Frances D'Emilio in Rome contributed to this report.

Regime Forces killed at least 15 Palestinians, mostly women and children:opposition activists said.

Forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad killed at least 15 Palestinians, mostly women and children, in a rocket attack on a rebel-held refugee camp on the southern edge of Damascus on Wednesday, opposition activists said.
Palestinian militia from the pro-Assad Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC) as well as Syrian army and intelligence troops have been surrounding the camp for months.
On Saturday they launched a ground infantry assault backed by tanks and multiple rocket launchers to capture the camp but were being met by stiff resistance, opposition sources said.
"The rockets hit a residential and shopping area way behind the front line. The victims were civilians," activist Rami al-Sayyed from the Syrian Media Centre opposition monitoring group, said from the area, adding that 45 people were wounded.
[Reuters]

My first and foremost priority is securing arms for the Free Syrian Army fighters as soon as possible. Ahmad Assi Jarba

The new leader of Syria's main opposition National Coalition has set his priority on securing arms for rebels fighting regime troops since 2011, in remarks published on Saturday.
Ahmad Assi Jarba spoke in Saudi Arabia after a meeting with Crown Prince Salman bin Abdul Aziz on Thursday ahead of a tour of Western capitals next week during which he will meet French President Francois Hollande.
"My first and foremost priority is securing arms for the Free Syrian Army fighters as soon as possible," Saudi daily Asharq Al-Awsat quoted him as saying.
"We are facing gangs that are launching an war of extinction against the Syrian people and arms are the only means of facing them and ending their massacres," Jarba said.
"I also plan to work on securing aid to our people," added the new opposition leader who was elected on July 6.
Jarba is a veteran secular dissident and seen as close to Saudi Arabia which has repeatedly urged the European Union to arm Syrian rebels.
Jarba said the opposition supports "a political solution that would achieve all the aims of the revolution while organising the transfer of power peacefully."
However, any settlement allowing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad or figures of his regime to remain in power is "completely unacceptable," he told the daily.
Jarba was elected to replace Ahmad Moaz al-Khatib, who resigned in protest at the world's "inaction" over the conflict in Syria that is estimated to have killed up to 100,000 people since the March 2011 outbreak of an anti-regime uprising.
[AFP]

Car bomb kills women and children in Syria's south

(Reuters) - A car bomb killed several civilians, including women and children, in a town south of Damascus on Wednesday, Syrian state television said.
The car was parked near the Amari Mosque in Kanaker, the channel reported. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based monitoring group, quoted activists as saying seven people had died.
The small town is under the control of President Bashar al-Assad's forces but there are rebels in the surrounding area. The province around Damascus has seen intense fighting during the two-year conflict.
Syria's civil war started with pro-democracy protests that were suppressed by government forces. An ensuing civil war has killed 90,000 people and drawn in regional powers hoping to sway the outcome of the conflict.
Assad's forces, spurred on by a series of recent battleground victories, have staved off rebel advances near Damascus and further south of the capital, in areas near the Jordanian border. Insurgents have used car bombs to target areas they are not able to push into with ground forces.
(Reporting by Oliver Holmes; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

forcibly ejected 30 Syrians patients by lebanese hospital.

A Lebanese hospital has "forcibly"  ejected 30 Syrians patients wounded in violence in their country, an activist  said on Monday, while the hospital said they were discharged over unpaid bills.
"The Alameddin hospital in Minieh threw out 30 wounded Syrians from Qusayr"  on Sunday, Khaled Mustafa, director of an office helping refugees in northern
Lebanon, told AFP.
The hospital, in northern Lebanon, has hosted dozens of Syrians from the  town of Qusayr, a former rebel stronghold that fell to government troops last  month, prompting an exodus of residents.
"They were forcibly expelled and were insulted," Mustafa said, adding that  "80 percent of them were fitted with splints because of their serious  fractures."
"The splints were removed without any concern for their health."
"They wouldn't even let them take their personal belongings or their  x-rays," he added.
Mustafa said the patients - some of whom were observing the fasting month of Ramadan - were left to sit on a pavement for two hours before Red Cross ambulances arrived to take them to another hospital in the nearby city of Tripoli.

  AFP reports.

Egypt's new visa rules for Syrians.

Egypt's new visa rules for Syrians imposed after the army's removal of President Mohamed Morsi are only a temporary security measure and will not erode Egyptian support for the Syrian revolution, state media said on Monday.
Last week, Egypt introduced visa requirements for Syrians after local media and some officials accused Syrian Islamists of joining deadly clashes between Morsi's supporters and the military that ousted him earlier this month.
Egypt has since turned back several flights from Syria carrying hundreds of passengers and deported Syrians who arrived via other countries at Cairo airport, according to the UN refugee agency UNHCR.
Hundreds of thousands of Syrians have fled the conflict pitting President Bashar al-Assad's armed forces against insurgents trying to overthrow him. The bloodshed, which began in March 2011, has killed an estimated 100,000 people and driven 1.7 millions abroad.

        Reuters news agency.

Rebel infighting in Syria undermining revolt

BEIRUT (AP) -- On Syria's front lines, al-Qaida fighters and more mainstream Syrian rebels have turned against each other in a power struggle that has undermined the effort to topple Syrian President Bashar Assad.

After violent clashes and the assassination of two rival commanders, one of whom was beheaded, more moderate factions are publicly accusing the extremists of trying to seize control of the rebellion.

The rivalries - along with the efforts by extremist foreign fighters to impose their strict interpretation of Islam in areas they control - are chipping away at the movement's popularity in Syria at a time when the regime is making significant advances on the ground.

"The rebels' focus has shifted from toppling the regime to governing and power struggles," said a 29-year-old woman from the contested city of Homs. "I feel that the lack of true leadership is and has always been their biggest problem." She spoke on condition of anonymity, fearing retaliation from the fighters and the regime.

The infighting, which exploded into the open in the country's rebel-held north in recent days, is contributing to a sense across many parts of Syria that the revolution has faltered. It threatens to fracture an opposition movement that has been plagued by divisions from the start.

The moderates once valued the expertise and resources that their uneasy allies brought to the battlefield, but now question whether such military assets are worth the trouble - not to mention the added difficulty in persuading the West to arm them.

"We don't want foreign fighters. We have enough men and we want them out of Syria," said Brig. Gen. Salim Idris, head of the Supreme Military Council of the Free Syrian Army, an umbrella group for dozens of brigades.

In strikingly blunt comments in an interview with Al-Arabiya on Monday, Idris, a secular-minded army defector who has the backing of foreign powers, accused members of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant of being regime agents and "criminals."

That group, formed in April and made up of al-Qaida's branches in Iraq and Syria, has taken on an increasingly dominant role in the Syrian civil war. Many of its fighters are north Africans, Iraqis, Afghans and Europeans who have flocked to Syria to join the overwhelmingly Sunni uprising against Assad.

Gunmen from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant were behind the killings of the two rebel commanders, the highest-profile casualties of the growing tensions between jihadi fighters and Western-supported rebels.

Kamal Hamami, known as Abu Basir, served in the Supreme Military Council. Activists say he was shot late Thursday in a clash that erupted after militants tried to remove a checkpoint he set up on the Jabal al-Turkoman mountain in the coastal province of Latakia. Two of his men were seriously wounded in the shooting.

Also last week, members of the extremist group killed Fadi al-Qish, the local commander of a group affiliated with the mainstream Free Syrian Army, or FSA. The fatal attack took place in the village of Dana in the northern province of Idlib near the Turkish border. Activists say the militants decapitated al-Qish and another fighter and left their severed heads on the ground as a lesson to other rebels who challenge their rule in the area.

The executions have enraged FSA commanders, who are demanding that the killers be handed over to stand trial.

Activists also say extremists have recently been sweeping into villages previously controlled by the FSA, taking over crucial resources such as bakeries, oil wells and water pumps to secure people's loyalties. In several cases, the militants were said to seize weapons from army bases and keep them from other rebels.

But what alienates the general population is the brutality. The extremists have carried out summary executions, public floggings and mass arrests, fueling the backlash against them.

In one prominent case in Aleppo last month, al-Qaida-linked militants executed a 15-year-old boy, Mohammad Qattaa, accusing him of being an "infidel" for mentioning Islam's Prophet Muhammad in vain. Gunmen shot the boy dead in front of his parents near a stand where he sold coffee in a killing that sparked rare local protests against them.

In many parts of Aleppo and Idlib and Homs, where a suffocating stalemate has been in place since last year, residents say their support and patience for the rebels is fraying.

In Aleppo last week, residents staged a protest at a checkpoint against a blockade imposed by the militants on government-held districts, because the blockade created food shortages at the onset of Ramadan, the Muslim holy month. The protest led to a physical quarrel between supporters and opponents of the siege and ended with gunshots fired in the air to disperse protesters.

Syria's uprising started in March 2011 as an Arab Spring-inspired revolt against the decades-long Assad family rule. It eventually transformed into an insurgency and civil war in response to a brutal government crackdown against the protests. More than 93,000 have been killed and millions uprooted from their homes.

The rebels are a disparate mix of ordinary citizens who took up weapons, army defectors, moderates and hard-liners, and increasingly, jihadists who have trekked to Syria from all over the world. A shortage of weapons and the inability of external players to interfere in the conflict to tip the balance in favor of one side or another has worked against the rebels.

Some FSA commanders are trying to tamp down the dispute with the al-Qaida militants, mindful of the damage the infighting has done to their cause.

"Their actions are despicable, but we will not be drawn into a fight with them," said one commander, who declined to be named so as not to aggravate the situation.

FSA spokesman Loay al-Mikdad was less delicate.

"I think they should come out in public and tell the Syrian people why they are in Syria. Is it to fight Bashar Assad or to impose a specific agenda on the Syrian people?" he asked.

"We never see them on the battlefield anymore," he said of the al-Qaida militants. "We only see them in liberated areas either next to oil wells or trying to impose specific agendas on territories."

The dispute is not restricted to Islamic militants versus moderates. In the north, there has also been deadly infighting between Kurdish and Arab groups over control of captured territory along the border with Turkey.

"This infighting is very dangerous and is undermining our revolution," said Mohammed Kanaan, an activist based in the northern province of Idlib. "People are fed up and tired. ... They are starting to hate both sides," he said via Skype.

Rami Abdul-Rahman, director of the U.K.-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said the al-Qaida militants are working to entrench themselves and secure a place in a post-Assad Syria.

"They are trying to control everything, they have a lot of money," most of it from private donations, he said.

Still, al-Mikdad ruled out a scenario similar to the Iraqi one, when U.S.-allied groups of Sunni fighters battled al-Qaida.

"Until now, the FSA does not consider itself in confrontation with these groups. Our weapons are directly only against Bashar Assad's troops," he said in a TV interview.

"But if a fight is imposed on us, we will defend ourselves," he said.

---

AP correspondent Yasmine Sakr contributed to this report.

car bomb killed at least 13 people, including 10 policemen

A car bomb killed at least 13 people, including 10 policemen, when it exploded outside the police headquarters in a town north of the Syrian capital, AP reported Monday.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based opposition group, told AP the explosion happened overnight in Deir Atiyeh, a town about 80km north of the Syrian capital of Damascus.
The observatory said one child was killed in the blast.
Syria's state news agency confirmed the explosion, but said it was caused by a suicide bomber detonating an explosives-laden car in a neighborhood in Deir Atiyeh. It also said "terrorists" were behind the attack - a term used by the government for the rebels battling to overthrow the regime of President Bashar al-Assad. [AP]

Syrian troops advance against rebels in Damascus

DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) -- Government troops fired tank shells and artillery in heavy clashes between Syrian forces and rebels Sunday on the edge of Damascus, where the military has been pushing its offensive to retake key districts that have been in opposition hands for months.

The Syrian army has seized the momentum in the civil war over the past three months, wresting back territory lost to rebel forces and solidifying its hold over contested areas, particularly on the fringes of Damascus. Two of the embattled districts are Jobar and Qaboun, from which rebels frequently launch mortar rounds on the heart of the capital.

A Syrian military commander said forces loyal to President Bashar Assad have recaptured 60 percent of Jobar, south of Qaboun, and were trying to retake the rest. The commander talked to reporters Sunday during a military escorted tour of Jobar organized by the Information Ministry. His claim could not be independently verified.

An Associated Press reporter on the tour saw widespread destruction that pointed to heavy fighting in the neighborhood. Marble tile factories were destroyed. Reporters made their way in the devastated area by climbing through holes knocked in walls because of warnings of rebel snipers in the area.

At least two bodies, apparently those of rebel gunmen, lay on the floor of a bunker described by the official as a "terrorist" hideout.

"The army is advancing rapidly in Jobar ... the area will be secured in the next few days according to a well-studied plan," the commander said. He declined to be named in line with regulations.

Jobar is near the road linking Damascus with its eastern suburbs known as Eastern Ghouta. Rebels have been using the road to transport weapons and other supplies to the capital, the seat of Assad's power.

The commander said the Jobar-Qaboun axis was important to "cleanse Ghouta from terrorist groups."

Assad's government routinely describes the rebels fighting to overthrow him as terrorists playing out a foreign conspiracy hatched by Israel, the United States and some of its Arab allies in the region, like Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

During the tour of Jobar, reporters were taken to a hideout the army said it seized a day earlier after killing 30 rebels and their leader there. Reporters were shown RPG mortar rounds and explosive devices, as well as an alleged chemical material with a strong odor.

Arabic graffiti on the walls read: "The al-Tawhid Brigade," and "the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant" - names of militant groups fighting to topple Assad.

Sunday's tour came as Syria's main Western-backed opposition group claimed that 200 civilians were trapped in a mosque in Qaboun as fighting raged outside between rebels and Assad's army. It warned that thousands of civilians in Qaboun could be "massacred" by Assad's army as armored vehicles and elite forces move in.

The U.K.-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which relies on a network of activists on the ground, said dozens of people were held captive Saturday by regime forces in the basement of the al-Omari mosque, but they were able to escape when clashes broke out between rebel and regime forces in the perimeter of the mosque, and the troops retreated.

It said 13 people, including seven fighters, died in the shelling of Qaboun Sunday.

"They (troops) are using tanks and artillery and are trying to break into Qaboun. The shelling is very intense and there is a lot of smoke," said an activist in the area, speaking via Skype on condition of anonymity, fearing retribution.

"This is day 26 of a bombing campaign, and they still haven't been able to break Qaboun," he said.

Later Sunday, a powerful bomb explosion rocked the Deir Atiyeh town north of Damascus, killing and wounding a number of people, activists said. The bomb went off near a police station in a densely populated area, but most of the casualties were civilians, according to the Observatory and the Military Council for Damascus and its Suburbs, a rebel group.

In Washington, U.S. officials said Israel targeted advanced anti-ship cruise missiles near Syria's principal port city in an airstrike earlier this month, according to a report by The New York Times. It cited the officials as saying the attack on July 5 near Latakia targeted advanced Russian-made Yakhont missiles that Russia sold to Syria.

There was no immediate comment from Assad's government, whose key political ally and arms supplier is Russia.

Asked about the reports on the CBS-TV show "Face the Nation," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu refused to confirm or deny Israeli involvement.

He insisted that he will not allow "dangerous weapons" to reach Lebanon's Hezbollah militants.

 Halaby reported from Amman, Jordan. Associated Press writers Zeina Karam in Beirut and Josef Federman in Jerusalem contributed to this report.

From AP.

A shell fired from Syria hit near the Israel-Syria border in the northern Golan Heights.

A shell fired from Syria, where insurgents and government troops are locked in fierce fighting, exploded in the Israeli-occupied sector of the Golan Heights plateau on Sunday, a military spokeswoman told AFP.
"A shell fired from Syria hit an open area near the Israel-Syria border in the northern Golan Heights," the spokeswoman said. There were no immediate reports of injuries or damage.
"Initial evidence suggests the shell was a result of errant fire from Syria. IDF (Israel defence forces) soldiers are currently searching the area," she said. "The UN forces operating in the area were notified of the incident." [AFP]

Aleppo residents struggle as currency tumbles

Prices of basic goods - such as food and fuel - have been rapidly increasing in Syria, as the local currency continues to depreciate amid the civil war.
The Syrian pound has lost 80 per cent of its value since the conflict began more than two years ago.
Local businesses and traders have been forced to find new ways to get by.
Al Jazeera’s Zeina Khodr reports from northern city of Aleppo.

Hundreds of families were trapped

Hundreds of families were trapped on Sunday in a northeastern district of Damascus by regime troops who fought fierce battles with rebel forces, Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported.
"There is a siege because regime snipers are posted on the outskirts of Qaboun and this makes any attempt to leave difficult," the monitoring group said.
"Violent clashes are underway between regime forces and rebels in Qaboun," in northeast Damascus where battles have raged for months as the army tries to
boot out rebel forces, the Britain-based Observatory said.
"The area has also been bombed by the army," added the watchdog, which relies on a network of activists, doctors and lawyers on the ground. [AFP]

Two French journalists kidnapped june are alive and Paris is working for their release.

Two French journalists kidnapped shortly after arriving in Syria in June are alive and Paris is working for their release, the defence minister said on Sunday.
Didier Francois, 53, a seasoned reporter in troublespots with Europe 1 radio, and 22-year-old photographer Edouard Elias were taken hostage after being stopped at a checkpoint on the road to Aleppo.
It was unclear who was holding them.
"Every effort is being made to ensure that the conditions for their release can be met very quickly," Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told journalists.
"We know they are alive and we are stepping up our efforts," he said. "In the interests of everyone, especially those two, I cannot say any more."
According to Reporters Without Borders, 24 journalists have been killed and 23 imprisoned since the outbreak of Syria's civil strife in March 2011.
[AFP]

Tensions increase within Syria rebel ranks

Free Syrian Army and al-Qaeda-linked fighters clash at Aleppo checkpoint, days after commander was shot by rival group.
The Free Syrian Army (FSA) and al-Qaeda-linked fighters have clashed again, just days after a leader of the FSA was shot dead at a checkpoint after a row between fighters from the two groups.
Activists told Al Jazeera that the FSA and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) on Saturday fought for control of a strategic checkpoint in Aleppo city's Bustan al-Qasr district, a strategic gateway between rebel and government controlled territory.
Some members of the groups now fear that tensions will escalate, hampering rebel efforts to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad. Analysts say divisions between Syria's rebel groups are partly to blame for giving Assad's forces the chance to regain the upper hand in the conflict.
Leaders of the Western- and Arab-backed FSA told Al Jazeera that they did not consider the ISIL an enemy, but that they would defend themselves.
"They are welcome if they help us fight the regime," Colonel Abdel Rahman Suweis, a member of the FSA Supreme Military Council, said.
"But if they want to cause strife, impose a new understanding of religion and make Syria another Afghanistan, we will take the necessary measures."
While FSA units sometimes fight alongside groups with different ideologies, rivalries have increased and al-Qaeda-linked groups have been blamed for assassinations of commanders of moderate rebel units.
Families trapped in Qaboun.
Meanwhile, hundreds of families were trapped in a northeastern district of Qaboun in Damascus by government troops who fought fierce battles with rebel forces, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based anti-government rights group, reported.
"There is a siege because regime snipers are posted on the outskirts of Qaboun and this makes any attempt to leave difficult," the group said on Sunday.
"Violent clashes are underway between regime forces and rebels in Qaboun," in northeast Damascus where battles have raged for months as the army tries to boot out rebel forces, the Observatory said.
"The area has also been bombed by the army," added the watchdog, which relies on a network of activists, doctors and lawyers on the ground.

Source:    Al Jazeera and agencies

Pakistani Taliban have set up camps and sent hundreds of men to Syria to fight alongside rebels opposed to President Bashar al-Assad.

The Pakistani Taliban have set up camps and sent hundreds of men to Syria to fight alongside rebels opposed to President Bashar al-Assad, militants said on Sunday, in a strategy aimed at cementing ties with al Qaeda's central leadership.
Operating alongside groups such as the al Nusra Front, described by the United States as a branch of al Qaeda, they mainly come from nearby countries such as Libya and Tunisia riven by similar conflict as a result of the Arab Spring.
On Sunday, Taliban commanders in Pakistan said they had also decided to join the cause, saying hundreds of fighters had gone to Syria to fight alongside their "Mujahedeen friends".
"When our brothers needed our help, we sent hundreds of fighters along with our Arab friends," one senior commander told Reuters, adding that the group would soon issue videos of what he described as their victories in Syria.
The announcement further complicates the picture on the ground in Syria, where rivalries have already been on the boil between the Free Syrian Army and other anti-regime groups.
Tensions erupted on Thursday when an al-Qaeda linked militant group assassinated one of Free Syrian Army's top commanders after a dispute in the port city of Latakia.
It also comes at a time when Assad's forces, with backing from Shi'ite fighters from Hezbollah and Iran, have been making gains on the Syrian battlefield.
Another Taliban commander in Pakistan, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, said the decision to send fighters to Syria came at the request of "Arab friends".
"Since our Arab brothers have come here for our support, we are bound to help them in their respective countries and that is what we did in Syria," he told Reuters.
"We have established our own camps in Syria. Some of our people go and then return after spending some time fighting there."
- Al Jazeera 

An air raid on Syria's UNESCO World Heritage site.

An air raid on Syria's famed Krak des Chevaliers castle, a UNESCO World Heritage site, has damaged one of the fortress's towers, footage shot by activists showed Saturday.
The footage shows a huge blast as a tower of the Crusader castle, which is built on a hill, appears to take a direct hit, throwing up large clouds of smoke and scattering debris in the air.
A separate video filmed inside the fortress purports to show some of the damage caused by the air strike, including a gaping hole in the ceiling and a pile of rubble below.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a watchdog group, could not confirm direct hits on the castle, but said there were reports of three air strikes in the area on Friday.
The raids came after rebels apparently using the Krak des Chevaliers as a base attacked an Alawite village called Qumayri, killing several people, Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman told the AFP.