FIGHTING BREAKS OUT AROUND YARMOUK CAMP IN DAMASCUS AS TRUCE FALLS APART:
TIMELINE – 3rd MARCH 2014 13.53 GMT:
The truce established to help the 40,000 people still remaining in the Yarmouk Palestinian Refugee Camp to the south of Damascus, fell apart over the weekend as Al-Nusra Front (ANF)fighters returned and hostilities with the regime broke out.
Shells and mortars fell on the Camp on Sunday and there was direct gunfire between ANF and members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, a Palestinian organisation that continues to support Assad. Each side blamed the other for the break down of the truce.
The truce had begun in early February when ANF withdrew after an agreement to allow in aid, but it now says it returned on Sunday because the other side had failed to implement the agreement properly.
The UN refugee agency UNRWA has confirmed that it has been allowed to deliver only 7,500 food packages since the beginning of the truce, which it describes as “a drop in the ocean compared with the rising tide of need.” At least 100 people have already died in Yarmouk of hunger or hunger-related illnesses.
18,000 of the 40,000 still inside Yarmouk are thought to be of Palestinian origin. The Telegraph tells the story of Yarmouk, HERE:
There are also concerns that the agreed truce in the south-western Damascus suburb of Moadamiyah are also breaking down.
Although some families who come from there have been allowed to return to visit their houses and students have been let out to attend classes, some entrance roads have also been closed.
According to activists the Assad regime has been demanding that the FSA fighters remaining hand over even their light weapons and some shelling has occurred, as well as attempts by some Syrian Army troops to sneak into the area. Moadamiyah was also the subject of a regime chemical weapons attack last August.
Despite apparent agreements with the Assad regime over the disposal of all of its stocks of chemical weapons since then, unconfirmed reports from Adra to the north-east of the capital, suggest that some form of poisonous gas was used in rockets landing on the district over the weekend.
4 people are reported to have died from the fumes and at least another 20 injured. Atropine, which is administered in cases of spasms caused by chemical poisoning, had no effect and hair and blood samples have been sent for analysis.
Elsewhere around Damascus, the Free Syrian Army targeted Assad’s troops on the Sahnaya highway south of the city near Daraya, killing 6 soldiers including an officer, and ongoing heavy clashes are reported in the suburb this morning, Monday.
Also on the southern ring road, Islamic Front fighters destroyed a Shabiha (Assad armed militia) truck with a recoilless gun, HERE:
In fighting in the mountainous Qalamoun region between Damascus and Lebanon, Opposition fighters claimed on Saturday to have killed 5 members of Hezbollah, 10 pro-Assad fighters from Iraq and 70 members of Assad’s regular forces.
However, Yabroud, the last remaining major Opposition stronghold in the Qalamoun has come under heavy shelling attack over the weekend, HERE: and cluster bomb attack, HERE:
South-east of Yabroud, Opposition fighters claimed to have shot down a MIG fighter jet near Qastal.
The massacre of civilians at Otaiba that was reported earlier (scroll down – see below), and which the Assad regime claimed was a the legitimate killing of “175 terrorists”, has produced a survivor who is able to give testimony.
According to him, at least half the group were civilians accompanied by Opposition fighters returning to other parts of the country, confirming the account given to the UN by the Opposition Syrian National Council. You can read more, HERE:
13 KILLED BY GOVERNMENT AIRSTRIKE AND ANOTHER 3,300 IN WASTEFUL, STUPID OPPOSITION INFIGHTING:
Syrian Government airstrikes on the small town of Kfar Tarakhim in the north-west of Idlib province on Saturday are reported to have killed 13 people, including several children, while fierce fighting around the town of Khan Sheikhoun has resulted in the liberation of the Al-Ajeeb checkpoint on the eastern side, with the deaths of a “large number” of Assad troops and the capture of ammunition.
In Hasakah province, a commander of the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL or ISIS), of UAE origin, is reported killed in clashes with the Kurdish militia, the YPG.
At the same time the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights in London has published an estimate that the infighting between moderate Opposition forces and the ISIL Jihadists since January 3rd has resulted in more than 3,300 deaths.
924 of the dead were estimated to be ISIL members, and 1,380 more moderate Opposition fighters opposing them. 700 other fighters from both sides had died in battle but could not be identified, while 29 bodies were found in abandoned ISIL bases, most probably executed before the Jihadists left.
281 civilians were killed in cross-fire, by stray bullets or in car bomb explosions. (EDITOR: What a stupid waste of life – and especially Opposition resources, when they should all be fighting Assad)
