Al-Assad bombs Damascus, to celebrate end of Syria’s ‘ceasefire’
Warplanes Strike Inside Damascus
Syrian fighter jets bombed rebel targets with added intensity Tuesday, including striking targets inside Damascus for the first time, an opposition rights group said.
In renewed violence following a four-day cease-fire that was largely ignored over the Eid al-Adha holiday, rebels also claimed to have assassinated an air force general in Damascus and fierce clashes broke out between rebels and troops backed by Palestinian supporters in the country’s largest Palestinian camp.
State television said “terrorists” killed the air force general, Abdullah Mahmud al-Khalidi, in the restive north Damascus district of Rukn al-Din, but gave no further details.
A security source, speaking on condition of anonymity, told AFP the general was shot dead Monday evening as he left a friend’s home.
In a statement posted on the Internet, the rebel Free Syrian Army said it had killed Khalidi, who it claimed was in charge of training, as part of “a series of special operations carried out by the battalion in reprisal of the Assad regime brutality.”