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SANA via AP
In this photo released by the Syrian official news agency SANA, Syrian people gather at the site after an explosion hit a university in Aleppo, Syria, Tuesday, Jan. 15, 2013. Two explosions struck the main university in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo on Tuesday, causing an unknown number of casualties, state media and anti-government activists said.
Twin blasts inside a university campus in Syria's largest city on Tuesday set cars ablaze, blew the walls off dormitory rooms and left more than 80 people dead, anti-regime activists said.
What caused the blasts remained unclear.
Anti-regime activists trying to topple President Bashar Assad's regime said his forces carried out two airstrikes. Syrian state media, for its part, blamed rebels fighting the Syrian government, saying they fired rockets that struck the campus.
Aleppo, Syria's largest city and a commercial capital, has been harshly contested since rebel forces, mostly from rural areas north of the city, pushed in and began clashing with government troops last summer.
'We escaped death': Syrian refugees struggle with cold, hunger and uncertainty
Entire neighborhoods have been destroyed by the fighting, frequent shelling and airstrikes by government forces who seek to dislodge the rebels.
The competing narratives of the two blasts at the city's main university highlight the difficulty of confirming reports from inside Syria. The Syrian government bars most media from working in the country, making independent confirmation difficult, and both anti-regime activists and the Syria government sift the information they give the media in an effort to boost their cause.
Aleppo's university is in the city's northwest, a sector controlled by government forces, making it unclear why government jets would target it, as opposition activists claim.
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A look at the violence that has overtaken the country.
Syria's state news agency blamed the attack on rebels, saying they fired two missiles at the university. It said the strike occurred on the first day of the mid-year exam period and killed students and people who were staying at the university after being displaced by violence elsewhere. The agency did not say how many people were killed and wounded.
The scale of destruction in videos shot at the site, however, suggested more powerful explosives had been used than the rockets the rebels are known to possess.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights cited students and medical officials as saying that 83 people were killed in the blasts. Several of the more than 150 people injured were in critical condition, it said.
The group, which relies on a network of contacts inside Syria, said it was unclear what caused the blasts.
Syria's crisis began in March 2011 with protests calling for political reform. The conflict has since turned into civil war, with scores of rebel groups fighting Assad's forces throughout the country.
The U.N. says more than 60,000 people have been killed.
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Sucks to be you! May God bless all the departed.
60,000 dead.
How many died in Libya before we attacked that country.
To bad for those folks they don't have "LIGHT SWEET CRUDE".
We are much too savage a species to be the descendants of any God.
"Syrian state media, for its part, blamed rebels fighting the Syrian government, saying they fired rockets that struck the campus."
Seventh century Sunnis and tenth century Shiites are fighting on whose Allah is greater!
Are we world policemen to bother about Syria?
Hope Benghazi attack has taught some lessons to those jumping and dancing as oil rich Sunni rulers of House of Saud, Qatar, UAE, Kuwait and other Arab League dance.
It amazes me how our President is so quick to jump in to help his fellow Muslims in one area, but not in another. So you have to wonder what his reasoning is with Syria. Syria though is an excellent example of why our forefathers put in place the 2nd amendment to our Constitution.
In other News, Israel cuts off Skittles in Gaza, World condems, Arabs, running yelling and screaming,blaring headlines!! Seriously, how sad must this get, until Arabs say enough, and stop the madness.
Tell us; who have the college students predominantly supported throughout this ordeal?
Let's just go ahead and keep muslims over there,and not here
Denying someone access to the country based on religious affiliation would be against a little piece of legislation that the man in your picture wrote.
riverboy: Who told you that?
Just by changing requirements, commies at one time were kept out of US and West and many were kicked out on that basis too.
These days Muslims are either killing non-Muslims or killing each other.
Why do we need such liabilities and curses on earth amongst us?
This was a horrible blast- over 80 killed and over 160 injured (some seriously)- it was the start of the winter term at the Aleppo University. Syrian State TV blames the rebels for the blast (car bombs+bombs)- Syrian Watch blames the Assad g'ment for airstrike and bombardment. Innocent students and professionals got killed, maimed and injured. This picture above might lead one to the wrong conclusion. See the article with multiple pictures -http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/o,7349,L-4333022,00.html In the meanwhile noncomtatants inside Syria are w/o foodstuffs,heat,subject to be looted,killed in skirmishes and Syrian refugees outside Syria are facing dire conditions in the camps especially in Jordan where there is flooding and cold. Rest of the world is hardly noticing Syria any more since new battlesare raging elsewhere.
Good question. Why people did not bother about genocides of Christians and more than 300000 were killed in Darfur?
Are they not humans? Are Muslims special in this world?
There was rebellion of Shiites against the despotic and highly corrupt Sunni ruler of Bahrain.
Brave Sunni rulers of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwaiti, UAE and other Arab League nations sent their forces and just quelled the Shiites rebellion in no time.
All of a sudden, these seventh century fountainheads of Sunni Islamic haters and killers, remembered “human rights violations” in Syria.
So the Sunni rulers of Arab League sent “human rights” group to Syria.
The head of the Saudi and their Arab League observers to Syria was a Sudanese Gen. The brave Gen was responsible for the genocides of at least 300000 Christians in Darfur!
Still House of Saud ruler and his 5000 princes and princesses and other Sunni rulers seventh century desert dances did not work.
Later they outsourced their dirty work to Turkey.
You see: Turkey is a strategic NATO ally and too much of Turkey’s seventh century Islamist Erdogan’s dances mean US, Britain and other NATO forces members have to pitch in.
What a way to outsource their dirty jobs to
NATO forces just like Iraqi wars to save Kuwaiti, Saudi and other “oil rich” rulers!!!
There was rebellion of Shiites against the despotic and highly corrupt Sunni ruler of Bahrain.
Brave Sunni rulers of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwaiti, UAE and other Arab League nations sent their forces and just quelled the Shiites rebellion in no time.
All of a sudden, these seventh century fountainheads of Sunni Islamic haters and killers, remembered “human rights violations” in Syria.
So the Sunni rulers of Arab League sent “human rights” group to Syria.
The head of the Saudi and their Arab League observers to Syria was a Sudanese Gen. The brave Gen was responsible for the genocides of at least 300000 Christians in Darfur!
Still House of Saud ruler and his 5000 princes and princesses and other Sunni rulers seventh century desert dances did not work.
Later they outsourced their dirty work to Turkey.
You see: Turkey is a strategic NATO ally and too much of Turkey’s seventh century Islamist Erdogan’s dances mean US, Britain and other NATO forces members have to pitch in.
What a way to outsource their dirty jobs to NATO forces just like Iraqi wars to save Kuwaiti, Saudi and other “oil rich” rulers!!!
If one has money, everyone jumps. Otherwise, most look the other way!
I'm shocked they still have school going on in the middle of a war.
Cowards.
What "human rights" the fronts for barbaric, beastly and bigoted seventh century Sunnis like The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights know?
Why are British trying to be smart by permitting such fronts for hating and killing machines?
In Syria, if Assad is overthrown by Sunni Islamic religious Nazis like al-Qaida, MB, the conditions of sane Muslims, minority sects like Shiites, tribes like Kurds, females and Christians will be unbearable just like Iraq.
Followers of Islamic cult, especially House of Saud and other Sunni ME rulers inspired and funded Sunni Islamic radicals and militants (al-Qaida, Salaffi, Wahhabi, MB, Taliban and other label ones), are fast marching backwards to their seventh century desert tribal days.
They are indulging in rapings, lootings, killings and genocides of non-Muslims (Darfur, S. Sudan, Nigeria and spreading like wild fire in many regions and Muslims (Libya, Yemen, Mali, Iraq, Syria, Pakistan, Afghanistan and other places).
In Egypt, the Sunni extremists with labels like Salaffi and MB (Muslim Bloodhounds) are opening up new chapters of Islamic bigotry. Morsi is just a front for them.
Just watch the fate of sane Muslims, minority sect/tribe people, Christians, women and Israel as the time goes by.
Pakis and Sunni rulers of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, UAE and other Sunni Arab League nations are responsible for 80 percent of world problems including economic ones.
Examine the devastations with Iraqi wars and now sanctions on Iranian oil and the resultant oil price manipulations. Oil prices of around $40 in 2009 has already crossed more than $110.00
They are making the lives of their own people also miserable by their Islamic religious madness to the intolerable levels.
Are we not committing hara-kiri by supporting our enemies and killers?
ONE CAN'T BELIEVE: SOME NEVER LEARN FROM THE PAST AND STILL ARE JUMPING ON SYRIA AND IRAN!