Reuters
The bodies of Syrian civilians in a street in the northern city of Aleppo on Sunday, after opposition activists said they were shot by government forces.
BEIRUT, Lebanon — Fresh from declaring that they had seized an important military airport and an air defense base just outside Damascus, Syrian rebels on Monday said they overran a hydroelectric dam in the north of the country, adding to a monthlong string of tactical successes — capturing bases, disrupting supply routes and seizing weaponry — that demonstrate their ability to erode the government’s dominance in the face of withering aerial attacks.
The battlefield advances coincided with fresh claims of bloody events on the ground, with rebels saying a government airstrike on Sunday killed several schoolchildren in a playground. Video from the playground, which activists said was taken in the village of Dayr al-Asafir close to the Marj al-Sultan air base, showed at least half a dozen children who were dead or wounded from what activists said was a cluster bomb. The asphalt was pockmarked and littered with bomb casings.
On the ground lay two children: a young girl, identified as Anoud Mohammed, in a purple sweatsuit, and a child who appeared to be a toddler in a red sweater, their eyes open and staring. Around them people were carrying the limp bodies of other children whose bare feet were smeared with blood, as a woman knelt beside Anoud and screamed at the sky. In a later video, Anoud lay dead in a hospital.
“What’s her fault, this child?” a man’s voice shouted. “What’s her fault, Bashar, this little girl?”
On Monday, the conflict was reported once again to have spilled beyond Syria’s border, drawing in Turkish antiaircraft gunners who were said by the insurgents to have opened fire on a government warplane that appeared to have entered Turkish airspace as it attacked rebel positions in the Syrian town of Atma, just across the 550-mile Turkish-Syrian border.
According to two antigovernment Syrian opposition groups — the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and the Local Coordinating Committees — and a fighter on the ground, who gave his name only as Saado, the Turkish fire deterred an attack on an area that includes a rebel headquarters and a camp for internally displaced Syrians. But there was no confirmation of the episode from Turkey, and the Syrian state news agency did not refer to the rebels’ claims.
Government warplanes also attacked the Bab al-Hawa border crossing at the Turkish border, an area where rebels have enjoyed control for several months, according to an antigovernment activist in Turkey. Many internally displaced Syrians have taken refuge in the area and fled in terror from the fighting, said the activist, who gave his name as Abu Zaki. The strike showed the government’s ability to strike at will from the air even in rebel-held territory where it has no control on the ground.
Syria and Turkey have exchanged mortar fire on numerous occasions in recent months, and Turkey, a NATO member, has requested that the alliance provide it with Patriot antimissile batteries, a possible step toward creating a de facto no-fly zone in northern Syria to protect rebels from Syrian government air attacks. Turkey has come under criticism from Russia and others for the request.
On Monday, Turkey’s military insisted that the Patriot missiles would be used only to defend Turkish territory. “Deployment of air and missile defense systems is a measure solely against potential air and missile threats that might come from Syria,” said a statement posted on the Turkish Army’s Web site. “It is out of question for it to be used either for a ‘no fly zone’ or an offensive operation.”
A group of NATO experts was expected to start assessing Turkey’s 550-mile southern border with Syria to identify sites for possible bases, and determine staffing and other technical details. The foreign troops that would accompany the Patriot systems would be subject to a special agreement, the statement said.
On Monday, amateur video, which could not be verified, showed what was purported to be rebel soldiers ransacking boxes of captured weapons, including hand grenades and rocket-propelled grenades at the Tishreen Dam near the town of Menbej. “Here are your spoils, Bashar,” a voice can be heard saying, referring to President Bashar al-Assad. “Here are your weapons, Bashar. God is great,” a rebel exclaims as two men are filmed carrying off a trunk of munitions.
Rebel forces had been besieging the dam’s defenses on the Euphrates River for days.
Rebels Claim They Seized Air Bases and a Dam in Syria
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Rebels Claim They Seized Air Bases and a Dam in Syria
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Rebels Claim They Seized Air Bases and a Dam in Syria
