Syrian Army Attacks Village Near Jordanian Border

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The Syrian Army stormed the village of Tal Shehab near the Jordanian border, opposition groups and activists said on Thursday, raising fears that the forces of President Bashar al-Assad may seek to cut off the torrent of tens of thousands of refugees who have been fleeing across the border.

The move into Tal Shehab is the latest step in a sweeping military campaign carried out by aircraft and ground troops seeking to wipe out support for the uprising against Mr. Assad around its birthplace in the nearby city of Dara’a. Refugees and aid workers inside the Jordanian border near Dara’a have said that the opposition fighters operating as the Free Syrian Army have kept open as many as four border crossings for residents to flee into Jordan, but Syrian soldiers frequently shoot at the refugees and occasionally succeed in reducing the nightly exodus to just 700 from peaks that reached as high as 5,000 in 36 hours.

The Local Coordination Committees, an opposition group that tracks the violence, and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition group based in Britain, also reported heavy fighting in the suburbs of Damascus, where the Syrian Army is shelling neighborhoods considered havens for the opposition. They said there was street fighting and shelling in Tadamon and areas south of the city.

By early afternoon, the coordination committees reported a count of 41 bodies in the Damascus area, including 23 in the neighborhood of Zamalka and 5 in the Yarmouk camp for Palestinian refugees.

And fighting continued around Aleppo to the north; Dara’a in the south, and Deir el-Zour to the east, where the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights has said earlier in the week that rebel fighters had taken control of parts of an airport.

Altogether, the coordination committees said it had reports as of Thursday afternoon of 67 dead across Syria.

The fighting took place as three United States senators were completing a visit to Iraq where they pressed its top government officials for support in the effort to topple Mr. Assad. Iraq, with a Shiite Muslim majority that may look warmly toward Shiite Iran and the Shiite-allied Alawite sect around Mr. Assad, has reportedly allowed Iranian airplanes to cross Iraqi airspace carrying supplies to the Assad government in potential violations of an arms embargo, although Iraqi officials say the Iranians have assured them any Iranian cargo is nonmilitary.

“The U.S. must make real our strategic partnership w/Baghdad, esp. as Syria crisis worsens,” Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, independent of Connecticut, wrote in an online posting after meeting with the Iraqi prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, and Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari. Mr. Lieberman was accompanied by his customary traveling partners, the Republican senators John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina — fellow hawks who call themselves “the three amigos.”

“It’s clear Assad’s killing campaign threatens the whole region,” Mr. McCain wrote in an online message of his own. The day before, President Mohamed Morsi of Egypt warned Mr. Assad that “your time won’t be long,” as Syrian warplanes and artillery shelled the battleground city of Aleppo and opposition groups reported heavy fighting around the Euphrates River city of Deir el-Zour.

Mr. Morsi, an Islamist and Egypt’s first democratically elected president, fired back at Mr. Assad just days after the top Syrian government spokesman said that the only change in Cairo since the ouster last year of Hosni Mubarak was Mr. Morsi’s beard. Mr. Morsi has called for nations to come together to support the Syrian opposition and end the bloodshed. His warning added to the acrimony in the region as the Syrian civil war continues to spill blood and pour out refugees.

Mr. Morsi, speaking at an Arab League meeting in the Egyptian capital, urged Mr. Assad to heed the lessons of “recent history” — the overthrow of dictators in Tunisia, Libya, Yemen and Egypt. Step down while you can, he told Mr. Assad.

“There is still a chance to stop the bloodshed,” Mr. Morsi said. “There is no room for stubbornness. Don’t listen to the voices that tempt you to stay.”

NY Times

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22 responses to “Syrian Army Attacks Village Near Jordanian Border”

  1. SYRIA SYRIA SYRIA almost every single article on this site is about Syria just rename this site to “YaSyria” 

    1. Constantin7 Avatar
      Constantin7

      I have been thinking the same since a while. You were faster to express it !  🙂

    2. Patience2 Avatar

      “Don’t listen to the voices that tempt you to stay.”……..  Hmmmmm… Might there be a ‘fuzzy face’ whispering in his ear?? Shaitans CAN be very subtle, just ask Eve.

    3. Mahdi Kenaani Avatar
      Mahdi Kenaani

      now you are being unfair Moe, they talk about IRAN, IRAN, IRAN and HIZB, HIZB, HIZB too 🙂 haha

    4. Persistent Avatar

      Moe,

      If you click the “About” botton at the top of the page on the upper right hand corner, you will find at the end of the second paragraph the following:  “Ya Libnan offers our worldwide audience the latest independent news coverage which focuses exclusively on Lebanon”.

      1. 5thDrawer Avatar

        Liban, our Lebanon … the persistent battle-ground.
        Where all come to test the theories they have found.
        They push and pull and wrangle, a cacophony of sound.
        A stress, reducing life as surely as the lead that flies around.
        Seems never, since an ancient time, a hero can be found
        To chase away the rabble or to take a higher ground.
        (5thDrawer-2012)

        1. nece sheer mr

        2. nece sheer mr

  2. SYRIA SYRIA SYRIA almost every single article on this site is about Syria just rename this site to “YaSyria” 

    1. Constantin7 Avatar
      Constantin7

      I have been thinking the same since a while. You were faster to express it !  🙂

    2. Persistent Avatar

      Moe,

      If you click the “About” botton at the top of the page on the upper right hand corner, you will find at the end of the second paragraph the following:  “Ya Libnan offers our worldwide audience the latest independent news coverage which focuses exclusively on Lebanon”.

  3. SYRIA SYRIA SYRIA almost every single article on this site is about Syria just rename this site to “YaSyria” 

    1. Constantin7 Avatar
      Constantin7

      I have been thinking the same since a while. You were faster to express it !  🙂

    2. Mahdi Kenaani Avatar
      Mahdi Kenaani

      now you are being unfair Moe, they talk about iran, iran, iran and hizb, hizb, hizb too 🙂 haha

    3. Persistent Avatar

      Moe,

      If you click the “About” botton at the top of the page on the upper right hand corner, you will find at the end of the second paragraph the following:  “Ya Libnan offers our worldwide audience the latest independent news coverage which focuses exclusively on Lebanon”.

      1. 5thDrawer Avatar

        Liban, our Lebanon … the persistent battle-ground.
        Where all come to test the theories they have found.
        They push and pull and wrangle, a cacophony of sound.
        A stress, reducing life as surely as the lead that flies around.
        Seems never, since an ancient time, a hero can be found
        To chase away the rabble or to take a higher ground.

        1. nece sheer mr

  4. Patience2 Avatar

    “Don’t listen to the voices that tempt you to stay.”……..  Hmmmmm… Might there be a ‘fuzzy face’ whispering in his ear?? Shaitans CAN be very subtle, just ask Eve.

  5. Patience2 Avatar

    “Don’t listen to the voices that tempt you to stay.”……..  Hmmmmm… Might there be a ‘fuzzy face’ whispering in his ear?? Shaitans CAN be very subtle, just ask Eve.

  6. 5thDrawer Avatar

    One might assume that well into the second year, their idea of chasing out everyone begins to backfire on them. Who is left, for instance, to grow the food for the emperors’s plate? Let alone a hungry army.
    Are they now trying to keep some in to till the fields?? Will city-dwellers know how? Pol-Pot history revisited. Check out Rhodesia too ….
    The fields are full of holes with bodies in them, and the irrigation systems were cut off last year.
    Why bother?
    As other countries try to feed the displaced thousands, Iran can feed the emperor …. shooting escapees is simply showing the weakness.

  7. 5thDrawer Avatar

    One might assume that well into the second year, their idea of chasing out everyone begins to backfire on them. Who is left, for instance, to grow the food for the emperors’s plate? Let alone a hungry army.
    Are they now trying to keep some in to till the fields?? Will city-dwellers know how? Pol-Pot history revisited. Check out Rhodesia too ….
    The fields are full of holes with bodies in them, and the irrigation systems were cut off last year.
    Why bother?
    As other countries try to feed the displaced thousands, Iran can feed the emperor …. shooting escapees is simply showing the weakness.

  8. 5thDrawer Avatar

    One might assume that well into the second year, their idea of chasing out everyone begins to backfire on them. Who is left, for instance, to grow the food for the emperors’s plate? Let alone a hungry army.
    Are they now trying to keep some in to till the fields?? Will city-dwellers know how? Pol-Pot history revisited. Check out Rhodesia too ….
    The fields are full of holes with bodies in them, and the irrigation systems were cut off last year.
    Why bother?
    As other countries try to feed the displaced thousands, Iran can feed the emperor …. shooting escapees is simply showing the weakness.

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