Syria - Ar Raqqa Checkpoint Liberated by Freedom Fighters 10-Feb-13 Rebels Inspect Captured Weapons

Syria - Ar Raqqa Checkpoint Liberated by Freedom Fighters 10-Feb-13 Rebels Inspect Captured Weapons
الثوار من حاجز الشرطة العسكرية-الرقة10Syria - Ar Raqqa Checkpoint Liberated by Freedom Fighters 10-Feb-13

غنائم الثوار من حاجز الشرطة العسكرية-الرقة10_2_2013.flv
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Summary of Events for Feb 9th

Regime forces, consisting of 23 military tanks and 3000 troops, committed a massacre that claimed the lives of more than 40 civilians, including women and children, in the village of Jneid in the eastern suburb of Aleppo, as they moved on to break the siege imposed by the rebels on a military factory in the Aleppo town of Sfeera. This is the second mass murder committed by the same forces following last Tuesday's one in the village of Khanaser which claimed the lives of more than 21 people in a similar manner.

Summary executions were also carried out by regime forces in the suburb of Damascus, killing five displaced people from Homs as they tried to pass a military checkpoint in the town of Jebeh. Some six people were killed when an airstrike targeting a petrol station hit a car in the neighborhood of Asali in the south of Damascus. Dozens of people were killed and injured as a result of the indiscriminate and intense shelling in the neighborhood of Jobar and the provincial towns of Douma, Saqba, Drousha, Moadamiyat al-Sham and Zabadani.

Dozens more civilians were killed and injured in Homs as a result of the heavy rocket, aerial and artillery shelling in the towns of Rastan, Talbisa and Houla.

Regime forces continued their attacks on residential areas within the rebels-held towns in Syria, shelling as many as 365 locations across the country, 17 of which were pounded with warplanes using cluster, phosphorous, thermboaric and explosive bombs, therefore, causing extensive material damages and forcing thousands of civilians to flee their homes.

Today's death toll reached more than 191. Regime forces and loyalist militiamen killed at least 153 people, including 14 children, ten women and 39 rebel fighters, whereas the rebels killed more than 38 soldiers and militiamen.

Rebels continued to close in on the capital and fought heavy battles with regime forces in the eastern districts of Qaboun and Jobar, few hundred meters away from the strategic square of Abbasids. They also killed ten soldiers and wounded many others when they attacked a military checkpoint in the northern neighborhood of Ruken al-Din.

Rebel fighters seized control of a housing complex that belongs to army officers in the Damascus suburb of Adra, near the notorious Adra prison. They also attacked several military positions in the Damascus suburbs of Mleiha, Harasta and Zabadani while continued to repel the regime's ground assault on the towns of Daraya and Khan Sheikhoun.

Dozens of soldiers defected from Prophet Abel military base in the Damascus suburb of Qalamon and from the Wadi al-Dayf base in the Idlib suburb of Ma'arrat al-Numan.

The rebels seized control of small parts of Menneg airbase in the suburb of Aleppo and continued to besiege and bombard the Kuwaires and Jarah airbases, using heavy artillery and locally-made missiles.

The rebels shot down a fighter jet in the village of Kafrnbouda in the suburb of Hama. In Raqa, they stormed a military checkpoint as well as the premises of the Military Housing Department in the Raqa suburb of Tabqa.

They also seized part of the Ommal neighborhood in Deir Azzour city and launched a major operation in the neighborhood of Matar Qadim (Old Airport), capturing an armored vehicle, detaining 17 soldiers and killing a senior officer.

Syria's Information Minister Omran al-Zoubi said on Friday that the regime is prepared to have dialogue with the opposition, but without preconditions. "The door is open, the negotiating table is there, welcome to any Syrian who wants to have dialogue with us. We are serious about the question of dialogue," Zoubi said on state television.

Bashar al-Assad reshuffled his cabinet today, appointing seven new ministers, Engineer Hussein Farzat as Minister of Housing and Urban Development, Engineer Hussein Arnous as Minister of Public Works, Engineer Ahmad al-Qadri as Minister of Agriculture and Agrarian Reform, Engineer Suleiman al-Abbas as Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources, Ismael Ismael as Finance Minister, Kinda al-Shammat as Minister of Social Affairs, Hassan Hijazi as Minister of Labor. He also issued Legislative Decree No.15 establishing two Ministries, the first is the Ministry of Social Affairs and the second is the Ministry of Labor.

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[Wendy Wyatt]

Right on!! :)