Turkey begins aid distribution on Syrian border

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Turkey has begun handing out food and other humanitarian aid to Syrians right on their common border as the worsening conflict in Syria makes aid distribution there increasingly difficult, Turkey's disaster and emergency body said on Saturday.

The move coincides with a sharp increase in the number of Syrians fleeing the fighting in the 17-month-old uprising against President Bashar al-Assad, taking the total in Turkey to nearly 70,000 and challenging its ability to cope.

The humanitarian situation in Syria has deteriorated as fighting escalates, cutting off civilians from food supplies, health care and other assistance, aid agencies say.

"The distribution of humanitarian aid by our country right on the border with Syria has begun," Turkey's Disaster and Emergency Management Directorate (AFAD) said in a statement.

Turkey has told the United Nations of the new practice and has opened a center in its southeastern town of Gaziantep to receive international aid, AFAD said, adding that it needed dried, tinned and baby food, bedding and personal hygiene items.

The Turkish Red Crescent has also set up sites at four places on the border with Syria to receive local donations.

More than 170,000 Syrians have been registered in neighboring countries - Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey - according to the U.N. refugee agency.

Some 1.2 million people are uprooted within Syria, many staying in schools or other public buildings, according to the U.N. regional humanitarian relief coordinator.

There has been a diarrhoea outbreak among residents of Rural Damascus province because the water supply has been contaminated by sewage, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said.

The number of Syrians in Turkey has risen sharply from 44,000 at the end of July, and Ankara is concerned there may be a flood of refugees from the major northern city of Aleppo as the conflict there intensifies.

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu on Friday welcomed the United Nations' appointment of Lakhdar Brahimi as the new international mediator on Syria but said he would need consensus in the U.N. Security Council if his mission was to succeed.

Turkey is setting up four new refugee camps to cope with the influx: two in Gaziantep, one in Kahramanmaras and one in Osmaniye. It already has eight tent cities - five in Hatay, two in Sanliurfa and one in Gaziantep - and a camp of prefabricated housing for 12,000 people in Kilis province.

Setting up the new camps would bring the cost of caring for the refugees to around 300 million Turkish lira ($167 million), AFAD said. ($1 = 1.7939 Turkish liras)

(Writing by Daren Butler, editing by Tim Pearce)

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Opposition: Senior Syrian policeman defects

AMMAN (Reuters) - The deputy police commander for the central Syrian province of Homs has defected to Jordan, an opposition source said on Sunday, further undermining President Bashar al-Assad as he struggles to crush an uprising against his rule.

"Brigadier General Ibrahim al-Jabawi has crossed into Jordan. He will announce his defection on al-Arabiya television later today," an official in the Higher Revolution Council, a activists' organization, told Reuters from Amman.

Jabawi is from Deraa, a rural province where the revolt against Assad erupted 17 months ago before spreading to the rest of the country.

Syrian Prime Minister Riyad Hijab defected to Jordan last week, the highest-ranking Syrian official to abandon Assad since the uprising began.

Homs has been the scene of some of the heaviest fighting of the conflict.

(Reporting by Khaled Yacoub Oweis, Amman newsroom; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

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2 Syrian journalists killed in Damascus

AMMAN, Jordan (AP) — Two Syrian journalists were killed in the capital Damascus, state media and an Arab satellite television station reported on Sunday.

Activists reported more clashes in some Damascus suburbs, the battleground city of Aleppo in the north, central Homs province, and the restive southern town of Daraa. The U.K.-based activist group Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said it had no immediate reports of casualties.

Syrian state news agency SANA also reported that security forces ambushed an armed group in Aleppo and killed and wounded some of them. It said that al-Safira residents in Aleppo prevented gunmen riding in five cars mounted with machine guns from entering their area.

In Cairo, the Arab League said an emergency meeting of Arab foreign ministers on Syria that had been scheduled for Sunday in Saudi Arabia has been postponed. It did not say why the meeting was postponed or give a new date.

SANA said one of its reporters, Ali Abbas, was killed at his residence in Damascus. The report blamed an "armed terrorist group" — the regime's catch-all term for its opponents — but gave no further details.

Pan-Arab satellite news channel Al-Arabiya television said that Bara'a Yusuf al-Bushi, a Syrian national and army defector who worked with the station and several other international news organizations, was killed in a bomb attack while covering a story in al-Tal, a suburb in northern Damascus.

Both reporters were reported killed on Saturday.  

Journalists have suffered a number of casualties in the 17-month-old uprising against President Bashar Assad, and in recent months there have been several attacks on pro-regime media.

Activists say more than 20,000 people have been killed since the revolt began in March 2011.

On Saturday, two bombings in Damascus brought chaos to some of the capital's most exclusive areas in another symbolic blow to Assad.

One blast — from a device planted under a tree — was set off by remote control as a vehicle carrying soldiers passed by in the Marjeh district. The explosion, which caused no casualties, was about 100 yards (meters) from the Four Seasons, one of the top luxury hotels in Damascus.

After the blast, gunmen opened fire on civilians "to provoke panic," SANA reported.

At the same time, a second explosion went off near Tishrin Stadium, less than a half mile, SANA reported.

Hours later, SANA said a bus was attacked in a Damascus suburb, killing six passengers traveling from the central province of Hama.

Explosions in the capital have become increasingly common as Syria's civil war escalates. On July 18, rebels carried out the deadliest bombing on a regime security building that killed four members of Assad's inner circle.

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Associated Press Writer Michael Casey in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, contributed to this report.

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Syrian troops push back rebels in Aleppo offensive

ALEPPO, Syria (Reuters) - Syrian troops loyal to President Bashar al-Assad thrust into a battered rebel stronghold in the northern city of Aleppo on Wednesday, forcing defenders to fall back in fierce fighting.

The intensity of the conflict in Syria's biggest city and elsewhere suggests that Assad remains determined to cling to power, with support from Iran and Russia, despite setbacks such as this week's defection of his newly installed prime minister.

"We have retreated, get out of here," a lone rebel fighter yelled at Reuters journalists as they arrived in Aleppo's Salaheddine district. Nearby checkpoints that had been manned by rebel fighters for the last week had disappeared.

Syrian state television said government forces had pushed into Salaheddine, killing most of the rebels there, and had entered other parts of the city in a fresh offensive.

It said dozens of "terrorists" were killed in the central district of Bab al-Hadeed, close to Aleppo's ancient citadel, and Bab al-Nayrab in the southeast.

The military offensive appeared to be the most significant ground attack in Aleppo since rebels seized an arc of the city stretching from the southeast to the northwest three weeks ago.

Joma Abu Ahmed, an activist with the rebel Free Syrian Army, told Reuters that insurgents had fallen back to the nearby neighborhood of Saif al-Dawla, which was now under fire from army tanks inside Salaheddine and from combat jets.

Some rebels denied retreating and an opposition watchdog, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said fighting in the area was the most violent since insurgents first moved in.

ALEPPO POUNDED

"Fierce clashes are continuing inside Salaheddine district between rebel brigade fighters and the regime forces, which have stormed the district," the British-based Observatory said.

Abu Firas, a member of the Free Syrian Army, said rebels had left only one building in Salaheddine. "We did not withdraw, our guys are still there and the situation is in our favor."

The rebel Tawheed Brigade said its fighters had repelled Assad's forces trying to storm the shattered neighborhood.

"Yesterday they were able to destroy five tanks and a MiG plane near Aleppo International Airport," the brigade's field commander Abdulkader Saleh said in an emailed statement.

As Assad's forces battle for Aleppo, there has been no let-up in fighting elsewhere in Syria. More than 240 people were killed across the country on Tuesday, 40 of them in the central city of Homs, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Aleppo, at the heart of Syria's failing economy, has taken a fearful pounding since the 17-month-old uprising finally took hold in a city that had stayed mostly aloof from the revolt.

Satellite images released by Amnesty International, obtained from July 23 to Aug 1, showed more than 600 craters, probably from artillery shelling, dotting Aleppo and its environs.

"Amnesty is concerned that the deployment of heavy weaponry in residential areas in and around Aleppo will lead to further human rights abuses and grave breaches of international law," the human rights group said, adding that both sides might be held criminally accountable for failing to protect civilians.

The military's assaults in Aleppo follow its successful drive to retake neighborhoods seized by rebels in Damascus after a July 18 bomb attack that killed four of Assad's closest aides, including his feared brother-in-law Assef Shawkat.

STRUGGLE FOR SURVIVAL

On Monday Assad suffered the embarrassment of seeing his prime minister, Riyad Hijab, defect after only two months in office. Hijab apparently fled to Jordan with his family.

Yet such defections and outside diplomatic pressure seem unlikely to deflect Assad from what has become a bitter struggle for survival between mostly Sunni Muslim rebels and a ruling system dominated by the president's minority Alawite sect, which is an esoteric offshoot of Shi'ite Islam.

Assad has firm support from old ally Iran, which sees Syria, along with Lebanon's Shi'ite Hezbollah movement, as a pillar of an "axis of resistance" against the United States and Israel.

Syrian rebels, who have accused Iran of sending fighters to help Assad's forces, seized 48 Iranians in Syria on August 4, saying they were members of Iran's Revolutionary Guards.

Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said some of the captives were retired soldiers or Revolutionary Guards who were on pilgrimage to a Shi'ite shrine in Damascus, but he denied any of them were on active service.

A Syrian rebel spokesman said on Monday that three of the kidnapped Iranians had been killed in a government air strike and the rest would be executed if the attacks did not stop.

Damascus and Tehran have accused Sunni Muslim Gulf Arab states and Turkey, all allies of Western powers, of stoking violence in Syria by supporting the overwhelmingly Sunni rebels.

A Syrian rebel group said it had killed a Russian general working as a military adviser in Syria, but the general himself later met Russian journalists at the Defence Ministry in Moscow.

"I want to confirm that I am alive and well," the general, identified by rebels as Vladimir Petrovich Kochyev, told reporters, Russia's Itar-Tass news agency said.

Russia, which has scores of advisers and technicians in Syria, some of them at a Russian naval maintenance base in the port of Tartus, has given Assad firm diplomatic support.

Along with China, it has vetoed three Western-backed United Nations Security Council resolutions aimed at intensifying pressure on the Syrian leader to step down, rather than using force to crush opposition to four decades of Assad family rule.

The violence in Syria has forced tens of thousands of people to flee into neighboring countries, and about 2,400 refugees, including two generals, arrived in Turkey overnight.

Turkey's state-run Anatolian news agency said most of them were women and children from areas near Aleppo and the northwestern city of Idlib, but also included 37 defecting military personnel. Nine were receiving hospital treatment.

Before the latest influx, Turkey said it was sheltering 47,500 Syrians fleeing a conflict which opposition sources say has cost at least 18,000 people since it began in March 2011.

(Additional reporting by Tom Perry, Oliver Holmes, Dominic Evans and Mariam Karouny in Beirut, Khaled Yacoub Oweis in Amman, Mehmet Emin Caliskan in Kilis, and Yeganeh Torbati in Dubai; Writing by Alistair Lyon)

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Syrian defense minister killed in suicide blast

BEIRUT (AP) — A suicide bomber struck the National Security building in the Syrian capital Wednesday, killing the defense minister and wounding the interior minister in a brazen attack on the seat of government power, state-run TV said.

Defense Minister Dawoud Rajha, 65, a former army general, is the most senior government official to be killed in the Syrian civil war as rebels battle to oust President Bashar Assad. Interior Minister Mohammed Shaar was in stable condition, state-run TV said.

Although it was unclear who was behind the attack, the high-level assassination could signal a turning point in the 16-month conflict as the violence becomes increasingly chaotic.

The capital also has seen four straight days of clashes pitting government troops against rebels — an unprecedented challenge to government rule in the tightly controlled capital.

Rajha was the most senior Christian government official in Syria. Assad appointed him to the post last year. His death will resonate with Syria's minority Christian population, who make up about 10 percent of Syria's population and have generally stood by the regime.

Christians say they are particularly vulnerable to the violence sweeping the country of 22 million people, and they are fearful that Syria will become another Iraq, with Christians caught in the crossfire between rival Muslim groups.

Wednesday's attack struck the National Security building in Damascus during a meeting of Cabinet ministers and senior security officials. State-run TV said some of the officials were seriously wounded.

Damascus-based activist Omar al-Dimashki said Republican Guard troops surrounded the nearby al-Shami Hospital where some officials were taken for treatment.

The blast came on the same day the U.N. Security Council was scheduled to vote on a new resolution aimed at pressuring the Syrian regime to comply with a peace plan.

But Russia remained at loggerheads with the U.S. and its European allies over any mention of sanctions and Chapter 7 of the U.N. charter, which could eventually allow the use of force to end the conflict in Syria.

Besides a government crackdown, rebel fighters are launching increasingly deadly attacks on regime targets, and several massive suicide attacks this year suggest al-Qaida or other extremists are joining the fray.

Activists say more than 17,000 people have been killed since the uprising began in March 2011.

The state-run news agency SANA reported that Wednesday's blast was aimed at the National Security building, a headquarters for one of Syria's intelligence branches and less than 500 meters (yards) from the U.S. Embassy.

Police had cordoned off the area, and journalists were banned from approaching the site.

Earlier Wednesday, SANA said soldiers were chasing rebels in the Midan neighborhood, causing "great losses among them." The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said army helicopters attacked the neighborhoods of Qaboun and Barzeh.

Diplomacy so far has failed to stop the bloodshed, and there appeared to be little hope that the U.N.'s most powerful body would unite behind a plan.

The key stumbling block is the Western demand for a resolution threatening non-military sanctions and tied to Chapter 7 of the United Nations Charter, which could eventually allow the use of force to end the conflict in Syria.

Russia is adamantly opposed to any mention of sanctions or Chapter 7. After Security Council consultations late Tuesday on a revised draft resolution pushed by Moscow, Russia's deputy U.N. ambassador Alexander Pankin said these remain "red lines."

Russia has said it will veto any Chapter 7 resolution, but council diplomats said there is still a possibility of last-minute negotiations.

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Red Cross: Syrian conflict now a civil war

GENEVA (AP) — The International Committee of the Red Cross said Sunday it now considers the conflict in Syria to be a full-blown civil war, meaning international humanitarian law applies throughout the country.

Also known as the rules of war, international humanitarian law grants parties to a conflict the right to use appropriate force to achieve their aims, and the Geneva-based group's assessment is an important reference for those parties to determine how much and what type of force they can use. The assessment also can form the basis for war crimes prosecutions, especially if civilians are attacked or detained enemies are abused or killed.

"We are now talking about a non-international armed conflict in the country," ICRC spokesman Hicham Hassan said.

Previously, the ICRC had restricted its assessment of the scope of the conflict to the hotspots of Idlib, Homs and Hama, but Hassan said the organization had determined the violence has spread beyond those areas.

"Hostilities have spread to other areas of the country," Hassan told The Associated Press. "International humanitarian law applies to all areas where hostilities are taking place."

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Pope urges end to Syrian bloodshed

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Benedict XVI in his Easter Sunday message has urged the Syrian regime to heed international calls to end bloodshed and commit to dialogue.

After celebrating Mass in St. Peter's Square, Benedict voiced hope that Easter's joy would comfort Christian communities suffering because of their faith.

He denounced terrorist attacks in Nigeria that have hit Christians and Muslims alike and prayed for peace in coup-struck Mali.

The pope struggled with hoarseness throughout the Mass before a crowd of more than 100,000 faithful. Only hours earlier he had led a three-hour nighttime Easter vigil inside St. Peter's Basilica.

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