G8 demands a political transition to the Syrian crisis

Fierce fighting between regime troops and armed rebels rocked parts of Damascus overnight, monitors said on Sunday, as the G8 called for a “political transition” to end relentless violence sweeping Syria.

The clashes in the Syrian capital came hours after a suicide bomber detonated a car bomb in Deir Ezzor, eastern Syria’s biggest city, killing nine people and adding urgency to the G8 calls for all sides to adhere to a UN-brokered
truce. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said fighting erupted during the night in the Kafr Sousa district of south Damascus but said there were no immediate reports of casualties.

The Local Coordination Committees, an anti-regime network of activists on the ground in Syria, said that Kafr Sousa saw the “arrival of huge reinforcements” of regime troops in the wake of the fighting. Clashes also broke out in
other parts of southern Damascus, the Britain-based Observatory said, adding that gunfire had during the night echoed across the city centre.

“Gunfire was heard in Abbasiyyin Square, and Baghdad and Thawra streets”, said the watchdog, referring to high-security areas of the city. Also overnight, regime forces shelled the outskirts of Douma, a bastion of anti-regime sentiment
located just north of Damascus, the Observatory said. On Saturday, 23 people were killed in violence across Syria, including those who died in the Deir Ezzor suicide blast, according to the Observatory.

The watchdog said the blast occurred on a road housing a military and air force intelligence headquarters and a military hospital, while state television said a “terrorist suicide bomber” used 1,000 kilograms of explosives in the
attack on Deir Ezzor’s Ghazi Ayyash neighbourhood.

There was no claim of responsibility for the bombing but, as typically happens in such cases, the opposition blamed it on the regime of President Bashar al-Assad. The government repeatedly blames bomb attacks on “armed terrorist
groups” and Al-Qaeda. 

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Posted by Hamza Jahangir on May 20 2012. Filed under USA, World. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry