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Goran Tomasevic / Reuters
A Free Syrian Army fighter throws a hand grenade inside a Syrian army base during fighting in Damascus on Sunday.
Heavy fighting erupted in and around Damascus on Wednesday as rebels battled President Bashar Assad's forces, breaking a lull in the conflict, opposition activists and Syrian state media said.
Assad's forces also came under attack in the east of the country, where a suicide car bomb struck a military intelligence compound in the city of Palmyra, causing dozens of casualties, they said.
Authorities in Damascus closed the main Abbasid Square and the Fares al-Khoury thoroughfare as fighters attacked roadblocks and fortifications with rocket-propelled grenades and mortars.
Accounts of intense fighting were reported by a number of news agencies, including Al Arabiya News and The Associated Press, in addition to state and activist media.
"The areas of Jobar, Zamalka, al-Zablatani and parts of Qaboun and the ring road have become a battleground," activist Fida Mohammad said from the district of Qaboun.
Goran Tomasevic / Reuters
A look back at the conflict that has overtaken the country.
Another activist said an army tank stationed at the main al-Kabbas roadblock on the ring road had been destroyed. Residents reported explosions across the east and north of the capital.
In Jobar, a working-class Sunni Muslim area adjacent to Abbasid Square, mosque speakers chanted "God is Greatest" in support of opposition fighters who attacked roadblocks in the neighborhood, activists said.
They said tanks stationed on the edge of the central district of Midan, just outside the walls of Old Damascus, shelled southern districts of the city.
Syrian state television said: "Our noble army is continuing its operations against the terrorists in Irbeen, Zamalka and Harasta and Sbeineg, destroying the criminal lairs."
Assad's symbols of power came under attack in Palmyra, 140 miles northeast of Damascus, on the main road to the oil-producing east of the country.
A bomb destroyed part of the back wall of the military intelligence compound near the Roman-era ruins in the city and then a suicide car bomber drove through, detonating the vehicle and destroying parts of the facility, activists in Palmyra said.
They said it was not immediately clear how many people had been killed in the blast and clashes which followed. Video footage, which could not be immediately verified, showed a large cloud of thick smoke rising in the city.
"The first car bomb struck at around six in the morning. The second one, which caused the larger explosion, broke through into the compound 10 minutes later," activist Abu al-Hassan said from the city.
He said tanks stationed in the compound fired shells in response into an adjacent residential neighborhood, killing several civilians.
Roadblocks across the city also came under attack.
The state news agency said two "suicide terrorists" blew up cars packed with explosives near a garage in a residential district, killing and wounding several people. Among those killed was a woman, it said.
Street demonstrations against Assad's rule erupted in Palmyra at the beginning of the revolt almost two years ago. But the army has since tightened control of the city, which is situated near a major oil pipeline junction.
After a failed uprising in the 1980s led by the Muslim Brotherhood against the rule of Assad's father, the late President Hafez Assad, thousands of rebels were executed in a military jail in Palmyra.
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ANALYSIS: Israel's airstrike likely to complicate Syria crisis
Full Syria coverage on NBCNews.com
Copyright 2013 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.
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Assad will come out on top of this war, and being most of those that oppose him will be dead he will win election after election after election.
I also feel the same!
After winning, Assad should blow up those cowards of Hezbollah, who are hiding under burkha instead of fighting Sunni Syrian rebels.
I wish best of luck to Assad and hope he and his team eliminates all al Qadia, MB, Salaffi supporting Syrian rebels.
Assad will come out on top like Gadhafi came out on top, the differences between both mass murdering dictators is that Gadhafi didn't target children to torture (cutting off body parts and burning them to death) as Assad has done, Assad also have killed thousands of children thinking only of himself as he slaughters tens of thousands of syrians seeking their freedom and rights from this evil mass murdering dictator who will fail in staying in power and will lose anyway, taking tens of thousands of syrians with him to his grave.
Other than that, what do you think of him?
Nope Assad will not come out on top.... well mabye he will come out on top of a pile of rubble.
We are living in the last days..... prophecy is unfolding at rapid rate before our eyes.
Isaiah 17:1
A prophecy against Damascus: "See, Damascus will no longer be a city but will become a heap of ruins.
And Jerimiah 49:24-26
Damascus has become feeble, she has turned to flee and panic has gripped her; anguish and pain have seized her, pain like that of a woman in labor.
Surely, her young men will fall in the streets; all her soldiers will be silenced in that day," declares the LORD Almighty.......
Israel also will be severly weaked when Damascus falls.....
Soon after all this happens Russia will move in with their Allies like a whirlwind through Israel and into Egypt........Daniel 11:40 And at the time of the end shall the king of the south(america, Britian, Canada and Arab allies) push at him: and the king of the north (russia and its Allies) shall come against him like a whirlwind, with chariots, and with horsemen, and with many ships; and he shall enter into the countries, and shall overflow and pass over.
Stay tuned :)
assad has all the resources of iran & ITS MONKEY behind him & the lefties in america find fault with mahmoud being referred to as a monkey.... go figger
Rooting in this war is like betting the over in football. You don't care who wins, you just want a lot of action and points/kills.
"In Jobar, a working-class Sunni Muslim area adjacent to Abbasid Square, mosque speakers chanted "God is Greatest" in support of opposition fighters who attacked roadblocks in the neighborhood, activists said."
This is what they do in a mosque!
In Syria, if Assad is overthrown by Sunni Islamic religious Nazis like al-Qaida, MB, the conditions of 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.
They are making the lives of their own people also miserable by their Islamic religious madness to the intolerable levels.
We should not support the Sunni Islamic extremists, who can't even tolerate their own Muslim sects like Shiites, Sufis and others.
I agree, just nuke em all....
COYOTEHUNTER: Nuking is the least cost effective solution to solve world problems including economic ones.
Or is it not better that they kill each other well in Syria?
i don't know, coyote hunter has a point, they have been trying to kill each other other off for 2000 years, and are just too slow at it. they refuse to educate their people, ( the peasants that is) and their religion is absolute.........follow or die, we would be better off with out them .
(sarcasm) Why don't these people go fight in the desert instead of destroying the cities...? Don't they realize the winner is going to have to rebuild...
Why when Americans riot do they burn down their own neighborhoods?
Where is Damascus?
syrians should "Saddam" Assad before he gets a "Gadhafi"
pretty soon the U.S.GOVT. will be killing it's domestic opposition, it's called mission creep!
Syria...everyone should take a good look...its what happens when you don't have a constitution that limits powers of government....but that doesn't mean it couldn't or wouldn't happen here, its just a matter of time.
It did happen here coyote, it was called the US civil war and cost over 600,000 American lives!!
Keeping our firearms isn't about the liberal govt. taking them away as much as the religious nut cases Christian Taliban we have here in our own country. Seperation of church and state is the only thing that will keep the US from having to shoot the right wing nuts. Tell dumb fukk McCain to shove his head up his AZZ next time he wants us to intervene. If we stay the hell out of there they will go back to killing each other which they have done for the last 1400 years anyway. As soon as Iran has a nuke, the Saudis or someone will buy another and they will take care of each other in a bigger way if we don't go kissing the Israel's azz.
Typical impotent armchair warrior. You shooting someone?? Lmao.
Christian Taliban? Did you know that the Koran mandates the beheadings of infidels? The Bible says to love your neighbor as yourself and to bless your enemies. There is a BIG difference. Islamic law is based on revenge, the bible on mercy and justice.
The separation of church and state is actually a mandate against the government of the United States from backing any single religion. It is not that the Government cannot have anything to do with religion, it just cant finance, or back any single one over others. It is also about religious freedom. This freedom applies to men and women in government as well. The bottom line is that the church may be in the state, but the state may not be the endorser/ financier of the church.
Also, I would like to point out that the school shootings are predominantly left wing perpetrators rampaging, not right wing.
You have to give credit to those who rebel . Unfortunately , the faggot , women right groups , and women in general , will
not support a revolt here . All kinds of tricks are pulled out of the bag before this economy based upon allowed corruption falls .
Big deal you elected a Negro , so what when he and his party is as evil as hell . The opposite party can even put up
a human being who could not win a second term and big accomplishment was being a self appointed leader of a charity group. The dollar is being debased by evil . In control is the Satan wheather his name is Obama or Bush or their parties .
Nothing can pass Congress unless the there are payoff called bribes called pork and common to get votes . The Am people wanted a stall in Congress instead they got pork traders whose money is thing like the Social Security Fund . Obama and Bush and their parties not only burned down this Country in the same way Nero burned down Rome , but this is a thousand times worse because your representives showed the same nuttyness all due to their greed , to do the same . This is a
Dictatorship of two parties and the only way to get rid of a dicatorship is to revolt as was none in the American Revolution .
This is call for in the Constiition of the US . Revolution is the answer to a structure of corruption according , but we have
faggot queers dancing in the streets and say look what Obama gave me , a right to say to G-d my sodomy is right and
the hell with you to my G-d they say . They say we have a political right to sodomy in Arm forces and in Public , and they
hav e the nerve to say the US supports this . The same is true of the porkers evilers thieves in Congress they are say
the Hell with G-d and they say it bluntly and now for years . They go to their chuches and they are forgiven not by G-d
by a Statute of a man call Jesus who say go out and sin again for you believe in me . Obama has killed and wants to kill seniors
as does his party . This is being done now . The flip with the charity toward Turkey and all these countries , deal with the
need to revolt here and do it , or G-d will . If these Congressmen and Congresswomen along with the whores on the Supreme court don't anger G-d then the whole of what is called the Old Testiment is false and I guess this is what they are trying to prove.
Thousands of years ago Isaiah 17:1 proclaimed, Damascus would be reduced to a pile of rumble
Oracle concerning Damascus:
"Behold, Damascus is about to be removed from being a city
And will become a fallen ruin.
Correct... like my post above
The Bible says the wages of in is death,man sinned the sin of pride at Eden and brought death into the world,God appointed man once to die,God has reserved the power of life and death to Himself.But man out of the sin of pride takes it in wars believing he can kill evil,causing death and sin,and his wages of sin is death,sowing death and reaping death,sowing sin reaping sin,what man sows he reaps,says the Bible: Galatians 6: 7,says,Be not deceived,God is not mocked,for whatsoever man sows,he reaps.Wars can't kill evil,the souls and spirits of all people are eternal,so wars can't kill their evil.
Iranians take note, people of Iran need to get a back bone and fight for their freedom. The time has come, enough of the oppression by a few, its time to join the rest of the world.