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Shaam News Network via AP
Smoke rising from a suburb of Damascus, Syria, following heavy bombing from military warplanes Wednesday. The image was taken from video obtained from Shaam News Network, which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting.
BEIRUT -- Syrian warplanes pounded opposition strongholds around Damascus and in the north Wednesday, as President Bashar Assad's forces intensified airstrikes against rebels seeking to topple him, activists said.
The U.K.-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which gathers reports from a network of activists on the ground, said government jets carried out five strikes in the eastern Ghouta district, a rebel stronghold close to the capital.
Three airstrikes also hit the rebel-held city of Maaret al-Numan that straddles a key supply route from Damascus to Aleppo, Syria's largest city and a main front in the civil war. Maaret al-Numan has been under constant bombardment since it fell to the rebels on Oct. 10.
No casualties were immediately reported in Wednesday's strikes, the Observatory said.
However, at least 185 people were killed nationwide in airstrikes and artillery shelling Tuesday, pushing the total death toll from the relentless fighting in Syria to over 36,000 since March 2011, said Rami Abdul-Rahman, the activist group's president.
At least 47 soldiers were also killed Tuesday, according to the Observatory.
Syria's crisis began as a peaceful uprising against Assad's regime inspired by the Arab Spring but quickly morphed into a bloody civil war.
Government forces launched airstrikes around Damascus Saturday, flattening buildings. NBC's Lester Holt reports.
More than 500 killed during cease-fire
The international community remains at a loss about how to stop the war and a U.N.-proposed truce last week for a major Muslim holiday failed to take hold.
More than 500 people were killed in fighting during what was supposed to be a four-day cease-fire ending Monday.
Air raids, car bomb hit Damascus on last day of failed truce
In China, the U.N.-Arab League envoy to Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, met Wednesday with China's foreign minister to solicit Beijing's support for international efforts to stop the bloodshed.
The U.S. and other Western and Arab nations have called on Assad to step down, while Russia, China and Iran continue to back him.
In the past weeks, the regime has intensified airstrikes on rebel positions and strongholds. Activists speculate that the government's heavy reliance on air power reflects its inability to roll back rebel gains, especially in the north of the country near the border with Turkey, where rebels have control of swaths of territory.
A look back at the violence that has overtaken the country.
Car bomb in Damascus shatters feeble Syria cease-fire
"The Syrian regime can't do anything on the ground, and that's why they use air strikes," Abdul-Rahman said.
The international community's failure to push for an even modest truce raised fears of a prolonged conflict in Syria that could drag in its neighbors such as Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan.
Turkey done talking
Turkey's support for the Syrian rebel movement has been a particular point of tension between the former allies. Turkey has reinforced its border and fired into Syria on several occasions recently in response to shells that have landed from Syria inside Turkish territory.
Syria's Foreign Ministry spokesman, Jihad Makdessi, accused Turkey of having "destructive policies" against Damascus and claimed the Turkish foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, was "targeting the security and stability" of Syria.
Revolt of the underclass: Syria rebels carry fury born of marginalization
Makdessi was referring to Tuesday's comments by Davutoglu who expressed "great sadness" that the holiday cease-fire had failed and said his government was done talking to Assad's regime.
The spokesman insisted it was the unwillingness of Turkey and Gulf states to cease supporting the rebels that doomed the truce, the state-run SANA news agency reported late Tuesday.
Damascus views the rebels as terrorists and accuses them of being foot soldiers in a foreign plot to destroy Syria.
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Having read that the rebels are mostly from other places vying for power in Syria, and are our foes elsewhere, I can't understand why we are helping them. It doesn't make sense to assist the enemy.
Bashar Assads' Syria was as close as you can get to equality in that region. Under democracy, majority rules, and Sunni Muslims are the majority. Under democracy, the 40 or so % who are not Sunni Muslim will find they must yield 100% of the power to them. That is why democracy will not work there.
Bashar Assad was not so bad, and those vying for power there are. In my humble opinion, we have been aiding the wrong side.
Cite your "mostly". There are jihadists there, sure, but the stories that I've read from reporters on the ground there say that the extremists are a minority, and viewed with apprehension even by the other rebels. They only fight with them because they have to. Were we to supply the rebels, they wouldn't need to depend on the jihadists for military support, and so they wouldn't need to appease them after Assad falls.
"Under democracy, majority rules..."
You know, just because they're Arab doesn't mean they're stupid. Transitioning to democracy does not mean that suddenly every minority is silenced. The Shiites will have fewer elected officials, but they'll still have them. That's the beauty of democracy - it's not an all-or-nothing deal.
Cry me a river dude! Then go whine somewhere else!
Pound the $hit out of them...go Assad...It's ashame we can't bring back Qaddafi
Got some anger issues there bud?
Damascus views the rebels as terrorists and accuses them of being foot soldiers in a foreign plot to destroy Syria
Well I would be thinking that Damascus is 'spot on'. The idea that the local citizens are so yearning for democracy that they would willingly rip their country apart is something only our State Department could dream up. Our fingerprints are all over the uprisings in the Middle East.
Apparently Obama has plans afoot that he hasn't told us about yet.
The idea that the local citizens are so yearning for democracy that they would willingly rip their country apart is something only our State Department could dream up.
I know, right? No nation in history has ever had a revolution before!
I hope the Assad Regime smashes these terrorists. Why does the media portray them as freedom fighters? They are terrorists. If the regime falls, an ethnic cleansing of chrisianity and other minority relgious groups will be carried out--against nearly 2.5 million people. How do these world leaders not recognize this?
I'm sure half the propoganda that we see of mutilated bodies and killed civilians were actually produced by these terrorists killing civilians--not Assad.
What makes you so sure? Unless you are from Syria and pro Assad maybe. I don't know. It's a two edged sword here and could be either or. I'm just saying we in the West don't know for sure either way what is really happening over there.
When is the Obama press conference on Benghazi ? What networks are covering it ?
ostrich56 you are right buddy , Our Media , the fair and balanced have been promoting these rebels as freedom fighters , they are nothing but Alqaida and Muslims brother hood thugs , brought in by the Saudis and Qataris .
No one is reading this article... wonder why.
It is nice to impose peaceful economic sanctions on a regime to squeeze them out over a number of years, and years. But, they still have friends, all the money, and lots and lots of killing going on while we keep squeezing dollars.
and we do a pretty good job doing the annual sqeezing of other countries year after year after year. Hey, I am seeing a pattern here.