At least 20 people were killed by an air strike in a border region of northern Syria on Thursday, opposition activists said, as Baghdad hit back at claims that Iran has used Iraqi airspace to fly arms to the Syrian regime.
An aerial bombardment by the forces of Bashar al-Assad, the president, blew up a petrol station in Ein Issa village in the northern Syrian province of Raqqa, killing and wounding more than 110 people, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based pro-opposition monitoring group.
The alleged assault in an area at the heart of the country’s deepening civil war appears to be the latest in a campaign of air strikes across northern Syria that has hit bread queues and other civilian targets, according to independent rights activists.
Rebels and regime forces have been fighting fiercely in Raqqa for control of a crossing point in to Turkey, which the rebels over-ran on Wednesday.
In Damascus, the Syrian capital, a military helicopter crashed and hit a passenger airliner as it fell. The helicopter crashed in the rebellious north-eastern suburbs after clipping the tail of a Syrian Arab Airlines aeroplane with 200 passengers on board, state television reported, adding that the aircraft landed safely and none of the passengers were harmed.
Activists said the helicopter was shot down by rebel fire.
The observatory also reported that three people were killed and “many” detained after regime forces stormed Yarmouk camp in the south of the city, where people fleeing fighting in the nearby area of Hajar al Aswad were believed to be sheltering.
Syrian state television said the army had captured about 100 fighters in a “special operation” in the Damascus refugee camps of Yarmouk and Palestine.
In Baghdad, Iraqi officials denied US claims that they were allowing Iran to overfly weapons destined for the Assad regime, which has cracked down brutally on an initially peaceful uprising that began 18 months ago and has repeatedly bombarded residential areas with tanks, helicopters and warplanes.
John Kerry, chairman of the US Senate foreign relations committee, suggested this week that Washington might have to withhold aid to Iraq if it continued to allow Iran to use its airspace to arm the Damascus government.
In Tehran, Brigadier General Ahmad Vahidi, defence minister of Iran – the Assad regime’s closest Middle Eastern ally – denied that his country had a military presence in Syria.
His comments were a clear attempt to qualify an admission this week by Brigadier General Mohammad-Ali Jafari, commander of the elite Revolutionary Guards, that his special forces were in Syria to offer the Assad regime “advisory help” – but not military support.
“As other countries have military attachés in our country, our country’s military attachés are present in Syria, Lebanon and other countries,” Gen Vahidi said.
Additional reporting by Najmeh Bozorgmehr in Tehran
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An aerial bombardment by the forces of Bashar al-Assad, the president, blew up a petrol station in Ein Issa village in the northern Syrian province of Raqqa, killing and wounding more than 110 people, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based pro-opposition monitoring group.
The alleged assault in an area at the heart of the country’s deepening civil war appears to be the latest in a campaign of air strikes across northern Syria that has hit bread queues and other civilian targets, according to independent rights activists.
Rebels and regime forces have been fighting fiercely in Raqqa for control of a crossing point in to Turkey, which the rebels over-ran on Wednesday.
In Damascus, the Syrian capital, a military helicopter crashed and hit a passenger airliner as it fell. The helicopter crashed in the rebellious north-eastern suburbs after clipping the tail of a Syrian Arab Airlines aeroplane with 200 passengers on board, state television reported, adding that the aircraft landed safely and none of the passengers were harmed.
Activists said the helicopter was shot down by rebel fire.
The observatory also reported that three people were killed and “many” detained after regime forces stormed Yarmouk camp in the south of the city, where people fleeing fighting in the nearby area of Hajar al Aswad were believed to be sheltering.
Syrian state television said the army had captured about 100 fighters in a “special operation” in the Damascus refugee camps of Yarmouk and Palestine.
In Baghdad, Iraqi officials denied US claims that they were allowing Iran to overfly weapons destined for the Assad regime, which has cracked down brutally on an initially peaceful uprising that began 18 months ago and has repeatedly bombarded residential areas with tanks, helicopters and warplanes.
John Kerry, chairman of the US Senate foreign relations committee, suggested this week that Washington might have to withhold aid to Iraq if it continued to allow Iran to use its airspace to arm the Damascus government.
In Tehran, Brigadier General Ahmad Vahidi, defence minister of Iran – the Assad regime’s closest Middle Eastern ally – denied that his country had a military presence in Syria.
His comments were a clear attempt to qualify an admission this week by Brigadier General Mohammad-Ali Jafari, commander of the elite Revolutionary Guards, that his special forces were in Syria to offer the Assad regime “advisory help” – but not military support.
“As other countries have military attachés in our country, our country’s military attachés are present in Syria, Lebanon and other countries,” Gen Vahidi said.
Additional reporting by Najmeh Bozorgmehr in Tehran
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2012. You may share using our article tools.
Please don't cut articles from FT.com and redistribute by email or post to the web.