Syrian Revolution News Round- up / Day 588 : Rebels exchange cross-border fire with Iraqi forces

Rebel fighters exchanged cross-border fire with the Iraqi armed forces as they tried to seize control of a police station in the city of Boukamal near the border with Iraq.

The clashes left a rebel commander seriously injured. ‫ Heavy fighting spread throughout the country to include more than 40 different areas. The heaviest fighting took place in the suburbs of Idlib and Damascus as well as in the city of Aleppo. The rebels stormed a number of military checkpoints, destroying a number of military tanks and armoured vehicles and killing more than 67 soldiers. At least 35 rebel fighters were also killed. Regime forces resumed their daily massacres in the suburbs of Damascus killing at least 55 people today. Regime warplanes and heavy artillery pounded several towns and villages leaving at least 15 people dead in the provincial town of Otaya and dozens more in the towns of Douma, Harasta, Kafarbatna, Erbin, Hamouriya, Sayeda Zeinab, Sbeneh, Medeira in addition to a number of other towns in the eastern Ghouta district. The neighborhoods of Hajar Aswad, Qabun and Asaly in Damascus were also subjected to heavy artillery and tanks shelling.  

Heavy aerial and artillery bombardments resumed on the suburbs of Idlib amid heavy fighting that centred around the Wadi Adayf military base near the key town of Ma’arrat Noman, resulting in the death of at least 18 people including women, children and rebel fighters.More than 15 different areas in Aleppo city and its surrounding suburbs were subjected to heavy artillery and aerial shelling that left at least 21 people dead. More than 28 different areas in Homs and its suburbs were also bombarded by the joint Assad-Hezbollah forces amid heavy fighting in the town of Qusayr that left four rebel fighters dead. In the meantime, four civilians were burned to death in the Daraa suburb of Bosra as regime forces resumed their massive military operations amid suffocating siege and indiscriminate attacks on esidential areas in Daraa as well as in Hama, Latakia, Raqa and Qunaitera, leaving scores of people dead and many more wounded while destroying dozens of houses, thus prompting a mass exodus.

Health Director of Homs Hassan Alfin said that the health sector in Homs sustained a total damage worth of more than US$16.7 million. He also added that only 9 out of 33 private hospitals are in operation, and that 6 governmental hospitals and 27 clinics are out of service.