Regime detains Deputy Secretary General of Baath Party

Syrian Revolution News Round- up / Day 532

Syrian refugees sleeping in the streets of the Palestinian refugee camp in Damascus

The Yemeni branch of al-Baath party said that Deputy Secretary General of Syria’s Baath party Abdullah al-Ahmar was detained by the Syrian regime and called upon President Assad to release him and to step down immediately.

More than 40 bodies were collected from different places in the Damascus suburb of al-Tal. Some died due to heavy shelling and others were murdered by Assad’s forces. Meanwhile, security forces executed six civilians in the Aleppo suburb of Menbej while the heavy shelling that targeted the Daraa suburb of Herak left more than 20 people dead and many more wounded including women, children and paramedics. Violence escalated once again in the capital where more than five soldiers from the elite Republican Guard division were killed during heavy clashes in the neighbourhood of Hajar Aswad. Regime forces fiercely bombarded the neighbourhoods of Qadam, Asaly, Tadamon and Kafarsoueh and the provincial towns of Kafarbatna, Abbaret Qabun, Bloudan, Erbin, Daraya, Douma, Dmair, Zabadani, al-Tal, Rankous, Maliha, Akraba and Qarrah, leaving scores of people dead and many more wounded.

Heavy clashes broke out in the vicinity of the Justice Palace in central Aleppo and in the neighbourhoods of Sha’ar, Sukari, Itha’a, Bustan Zahra and Bustan Qaser. Meanwhile, the MIG fighter jets bombarded the provincial towns of Menbej, Indadn and Talhadiya while heavy artillery and rocket launchers bombarded the western outskirts, killing dozens of civilians and wounding many others.

Regime forces continued attacks on the city of Homs and its provincial towns of Qsair, Rastan, Talbiseh and Houleh, amid heavy clashes that spread throughout the province. They also resumed shelling the city of Deir Azzour and its provincial town of Abu Kamal. They also bombed the district of Sahl al-Ghab in addition to assaulting the provincial town of Hurbanfsa. They shelled the city of Daraa and its provincial towns of Dael, Naima and Sheikh Maskin in addition to the village of Ghonaimiya in the suburbs of Latakia as well as the Idlib suburbs of Taftanaz, Ma’arrat Naman and the villages in Jabal Azzawiya district.