TERRORISM:: Syria says suicide bombers kill 28 in Aleppo – AP
By MB Snow at February 10, 2012 | 12:06 pm | Print
ALEPPO, Syria (AP) — Two suicide car bombers struck Syrian security compounds in Aleppo on Friday, killing 28 people, Syrian officials said, bringing significant violence for the first time to a major city that has largely stood by President Bashar Assad in the 11-month-old uprising against his rule.
State media touted the blasts as proof that the regime faces a campaign by terrorists, not a popular uprising against Assad’s rule. The opposition, in turn, accused the regime of trying to smear its movement as government forces try to crush rebels in one of their main strongholds, Homs.
The military, meanwhile, stepped up its siege of Homs that has reportedly killed hundreds over the past week. Soldiers who have been bombarding the central city made their first ground move, storming into one of the most restive neighborhoods.
At the same time, troops and security forces opened fire on anti-regime protesters who streamed out of mosques after Friday prayers nationwide. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 27 civilians were killed.
The morning blasts in the northern city of Aleppo, Syria’s most populous, ripped apart the facades of the local headquarters of the Military Intelligence Directorate and a barracks of the Security Preservation forces in another part of the city.
At the Directorate, windows were shattered and a large crater was torn into the pavement outside the entrance. A weeping correspondent on state-run TV showed graphic footage of at least five corpses, collected in sacks and under blankets by the side of the road.
At both sites, suicide bombers in explosives-packed vehicles tried to smash into the entrances, security officials said. At the barracks, the Security Preservation forces commander Brig. Firas Abbas told an Associated Press reporter on a government-guided visit to the scene that the vehicle made it through one roadblock before detonating near the gates.
via Daily Record | Morris County NJ | AP Wire.