AMMAN: Syrian warplanes bombarded a rebel stronghold in a Damascus suburb on Monday, the final day of a truce broken by air attacks and fighting between the two sides across the country, opposition activists said.
Jets targeted Harat al-Shwam, a residential area a few kilometres east of the capital which President Bashar al-Assad’s forces had tried to storm last week, activists said.
“Tanks are deployed around Harat al-Shwam but they haven’t been able to go in. They tried a week ago and failed,” said one activist who lives near the area and did not want to be named.
Sham News Network, an activist group, said jets also raided farmland adjacent to the northern Damascus neighbourhood of Barzeh and the city of Deir al-Zor in eastern Syria.
UN-Arab League peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi will visit China this week, the Foreign Ministry announced on Monday, as Syrian President Bashar al-Assad kept up air strikes against rebels despite a UN-brokered truce that now appears to be in tatters.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said that China appreciated Brahimi’s mediation efforts in the Syrian crisis but did not provide details about who Brahimi would meet on his two-day visit which begins on Tuesday.
China and Russia have vetoed three U.N. resolutions condemning Assad’s government for the violence. But China has been keen to show it does not take sides in Syria and has urged the government there to talk to the opposition and take steps to meet demands for political change. (Reuters)
