Syrian Airstrikes Kill at Least 5 in Aleppo

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/07/world/middleeast/syrian-airstrikes-in-aleppo.html

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BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) — A Syrian government airstrike on a heavily contested neighborhood in the northern city of Aleppo killed at least five people on Saturday, while government forces battled rebels in a town outside Damascus, the capital, activists said.

Aleppo and Damascus, Syria’s two largest cities, are two of the critical fronts in the civil war between the government of President Bashar al-Assad and the rebels trying to overthrow it. Opposition fighters have managed to seize control of several neighborhoods in Aleppo since storming the city last summer, while the government has largely kept the rebels at bay in Damascus.

Opposition fighters have, however, captured several suburbs of the capital and look increasingly capable of threatening the heart of the city — and of Mr. Assad’s power.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a group based in Britain that has contacts in Syria, said the air raid on Saturday hit the Aleppo neighborhood of Sheikh Maqsoud, which rebels seized parts of last weekend after days of heavy fighting.

Both sides are eager to control the strategic district, which is predominantly inhabited by minority Kurds. It is on a hill on the northern edge of Aleppo and overlooks much of the city, giving those who control it the ability to hit areas held by the opposing side with mortars and artillery.

The rebels control large parts of northern Syria, and they captured their first provincial capital, Raqqa, last month. They have also been making gains in recent weeks in the south, seizing military bases and towns in the strategically important region between Damascus and the border with Jordan, about 100 miles from the capital.

On Saturday, government troops clashed with rebels in the town of Otaybah east of Damascus, the observatory said.

In the capital itself, several mortar rounds hit areas near the Tishrin sports stadium, in the downtown neighborhood of Baramkeh, killing one person and wounding at least 13, the state-run SANA news agency said. The attacks also caused material damage to stores in the area and set several parked vehicles on fire, SANA said.

The observatory said mortar rounds also struck the Damascus suburb of Jaramana. There was no immediate report of casualties.