Syrian Revolution News Round- up / Day 589 : Assad issues a general amnesty while his forces kill 21 children and 18 women

Assad’s forces perpetrated massacres in Damascus, Aleppo and Deir Azzour at the same time Assad issued a general amnesty for crimes committed during the 19-month Syrian uprising – except for those carried out by the “terrorist” rebel opposition.

At least 72 people were killed and dozens more were injured as regime forces carried on their massive military operations in the suburbs of Damascus whereby 27 people died in the provincial town of Moadamiya, half of which were executed after been detained and the other half were killed by a car bomb explosion near a mosque and indiscriminate rocket shelling on a residential compound. Meanwhile, 14 people died in the provincial town of Douma as a result of the indiscriminate mortar shelling and sniper fire. Dozens of people were also killed and more were injured as regime forces pounded the eastern Ghouta district as well as the provincial towns of Zabdani, Zamalka, Harasta and Erbin.

Regime’s heavy artillery shelled the neighbourhood of Masaken Hanon in Aleppo killing as many as 20 people when two shells hit a bakery. At least four children died in a similar attack on the neighbourhood of Karm Homed, while two teenagers that show severe torture marks were found in the neighbourhood of Khaldiya. A number of people were killed and dozens more were injured due to the indiscriminate shelling that targeted more than 30 different areas in Aleppo and its suburbs.

An airstrike killed eight people including two women and four children in the Deir Azzour suburb of Boukamal. Dozens of people were wounded as regime forces launched their heaviest rocket, artillery and aerial shelling using cluster bombs in the city of Deir Azzour and its provincial town of Mayadin.

More than 24 different areas in Homs province were under heavy bombardment by the joint Assad-Hezbollah forces. Regime forces also unleashed heavy aerial and artillery bombardments on the suburbs of Idlib mainly targeting the town of Ma’arrat Noman.Meanwhile, six civilians were executed in Daraa province of which three died under torture while regime forces resumed their massive military operations amid suffocating siege and indiscriminate attacks on residential 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.Heavy battles broke out across the country between rebel fighters and regime forces, leaving at least 42 army soldiers and 40 rebel fighters dead. Rebel fighters continued to besiege the Wadi Adayf military base and a number of military checkpoints in the Idlib suburb of Ma’arrat Noman. The rebels said they seized control of more than 18 different military positions in the suburbs of Idlib so far, thus forcing more than 80% of regime forces out of it.