Explosions and gunfire sounded across the Mazzeh neighborhood of western Damascus as fighting spread to President Bashar al-Assad’s capital city, an opposition group said.
Security forces filled the district, which houses a number of embassies and homes of security officers, following the blasts, according to an e-mailed statement today from the opposition Local Coordination Committees of Syria.
At least three “terrorists” and a member of the security forces were killed, the British Broadcasting Corp. reported Syrian television as saying, with witnesses describing exchanges using rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns.
Intensified attacks on rebel strongholds by Assad’s forces over the past month have led protests to sprout in new regions, while fighting has reached the heart of Damascus. Government forces were targeted by a series of bombings in Aleppo and Damascus over the weekend which left at least 30 dead, state media reported. The attacks followed the capture by Assad’s army of the rebel cities of Homs and Idlib this month.
Last month, government forces opened fire in Mazzeh after thousands rallied in the capital during the funerals of civilians killed during protests, the opposition said on Feb. 19. The district is home to many security officers and government officials and also houses several Damascus university campuses, the headquarters of more than one security organization and some embassies. Damascus was the scene of fighting involving tanks and other armored vehicles in January.
The International Committee of the Red Cross will ask Russia today to help persuade Syria to provide humanitarian access as fighting escalates.
ICRC President Jakob Kellenberger was to meet Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Moscow on the need to provide aid and allow medical evacuations in areas where fighting is taking place, the Geneva-based body said in an e-mailed statement.
“It is a matter of utmost urgency that the ICRC be able to extend its assistance and protection activities,” the Red Cross said. Russia and China have opposed two United Nations Security Council resolutions aimed at Assad’s government.
UN envoy Kofi Annan left Damascus without agreement on a ceasefire earlier this month after meeting Assad. The Syrians made several demands of the UN, including a guarantee from the world body that rebels would surrender their arms to the authorities, according to a copy of the document obtained by Bloomberg News.
Syrian security forces arrested two of the “most wanted dangerous terrorists” after a gunfight in Jisr al-Shoughour near the border with Lebanon that resulted in the death of a number of “terrorists,” state-run SANA news agency said.
Three days of confrontations between protesters and government troops in the north central city of Al Raqqua have left 26 people dead, the Local Coordination Committees of Syria said in an e-mail yesterday. It said residents were forced to establish field hospitals to treat the wounded after government- run hospitals refused to treat them. Syrian state forces killed 67 people across the country yesterday, it said, and eight more today.
The dead include two soldiers who defected after rebels from the Free Syria Army attacked a security checkpoint in Qameshli, the statement said. “The regime’s forces chased and killed them,” according to the statement.
To contact the reporter on this story: Donna Abu-Nasr in Manama at dabunasr@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Andrew J. Barden at barden@bloomberg.net
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