Syria crisis: Aleppo and Homs clashes amid prison revolts

The BBC's Ian Pannell reports from Syria's second city of Aleppo

Syrian troops have clashed with rebels in the capital, Damascus, and the second city, Aleppo, as they try to retake areas out of their control. 

In Aleppo and Homs, there have been revolts and attempted breakouts by prisoners. Nine inmates died during the Aleppo jail rebellion, activists say.

Activists say security forces are threatening to storm the Homs prison.

The renewed fighting comes amid strong international concern over Syria's threat to use chemical weapons.

Damascus said on Monday that such weapons would not be deployed inside Syria but would be against foreign attack.

'Catastrophic'

Explosions and fires have been reported from the Homs jail, where unarmed policemen are said to have defected and prisoners have staged a sit-in. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said two prisoners had been killed. 

The activist group the Local Co-Ordination Committee (LCC) said there was a "catastrophic humanitarian situation" inside the jail. 

The group said the military was planning a massacre and called for international help to prevent "mass executions" of prisoners.

Government officials had earlier denied there had been a defection.

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The general sentiment is that everyone here in Aleppo is terrified”

Salam Syrian state television says the government has now regained control of most areas of Damascus which had been captured by rebels last week.

 

It has broadcast footage of the southern district of Nahr Isha, showing the bodies of "terrorists" it says were killed in the fighting.

Footage showed Syrian troops going from house to house searching for rebel fighters in recaptured areas of Damascus.

Civilians in the Qabun area of the city complained of not being able to leave their homes. Government forces were said to have taken up positions in the Midan district, held earlier by rebels.

The rebel Free Syrian Army (FSA) launched a new offensive in Aleppo, Syria's commercial centre, at the weekend, and fighting is reported to be continuing as pro-government troops attempt to take back the seized districts.

Heavy shelling and rocket fire continued overnight. The BBC's Wyre Davies, on the Turkish border with Syria, says losing Aleppo would be a serious blow to the government so it is determined to use its far superior weaponry to halt the rebels' advance.

The Observatory says more than 1,260 people have been killed in Syria since Sunday, which would be the bloodiest week of the 16-month uprising.

Chemical use 'reprehensible'

 

On Monday, US President Barack Obama warned Syria's President Bashar al-Assad that his government would be held accountable if it used chemical weapons, saying such a move would be a "tragic mistake".

Obama: Syria will be 'held accountable' for WMDs

Damascus says it would not use its massive chemical weapons stockpile in uprising but warns it could against any external aggression.

 

Photo: Reuters

US President Barack Obama said on Monday that Syrian President Bashar Assad would be held accountable if he made the "tragic mistake" of using his stockpile of chemical weapons.

"Today we're also working so that the Syrian people can have a better future, free of the Assad regime," Obama said in a speech on his foreign policy to veterans in Reno, Nevada.

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"Given the regime's stockpiles of chemical weapons, we will continue to make it clear to Assad and those around him that the world is watching and that they will be held accountable by the international community and the United States should they make the tragic mistake of using those weapons," he said.

Syria said on Monday it could use chemical weapons in response to any "external aggression" but they would not be used in Syrian President Bashar Assad's campaign to crush a 16-month-old uprising against his rule.
Obama's comments echoed a similar statement made Monday by British Foreign Secretary William Hague, who called Syria's threat to use chemical weapons against foreign intervention "unacceptable."

"This is typical of the complete illusion of this regime, that they are the victims of external aggression," Hague told reporters at a European Union foreign ministers' meeting in Brussels. "What is actually happening is their own people are rising up against a brutal police state ... and in any case it is unacceptable to say that they would use chemical weapons under any circumstances."

Foreign Ministry spokesman Jihad Makdissi said any chemical or bacterial weapons were securely stored by the armed forces.

"The ministry wants to re-affirm the stance of the Syrian Arab Republic that any chemical or bacterial weapon will never be used - and I repeat will never be used - during the crisis in Syria regardless of the developments," Makdissi said.

"These weapons are stored and secured by Syrian military forces and under its direct supervision and will never be used unless Syria faces external aggression."


It appeared to be the first time that Syria acknowledged it might possess non-conventional weapons. Damascus is not a signatory to the 1992 Chemical Weapons Convention that bans their use, production or stockpiling.

Makdissi raised the possibility that "terrorists groups" might be supplied with biological weapons by outside powers which "could be used in one of the villages - God forbid - and then they would accuse the Syrian forces."

He also said the security situation in Damascus, where Assad's forces have been battling rebels for more than a week, was improving and would return to normal within days.

He condemned calls for Assad to step down at a meeting of Arab foreign ministers in Qatar over the weekend, calling it a "flagrant intervention" in Syria's internal affairs.

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