Syria government welcomes Iran nuclear deal

Syria's state media says Damascus welcomes the international community's nuclear deal with Iran, calling it a "historic agreement."
     
Iran agreed with the U.S. and five other world powers to a temporary freeze of its nuclear program for six months in exchange for limited and gradual sanctions relief.
     
Iran is a chief backer of President Bashar Assad's government.
     
Activists fear the deal will take international pressure off of Iran and embolden Syria's government to use an even harder hand to quash the 3-year-old uprising.
     
The Sunday report from SANA, a mouthpiece for the views of Assad's government, quoted an unnamed Foreign Ministry official.


On the field:

Rebels fighting to break a Syrian government siege of the opposition-held suburbs of Damascus have clashed with soldiers in battles that left over 75 dead on both sides, activists said Sunday.
 
The fighting raged overnight in the Ghouta area east of Damascus where for months forces loyal to President Bashar Assad have been preventing food, clean water, medicine and other supplies from entering.
     
Rami Abdurrahman of the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and an activist based in the nearby Qalamoun region said rebels launched their attack Friday, when 20 were killed. The 75 more who died on Saturday and early Sunday constituted an unusually high toll for a single day's fighting.
 
Abdurrahman estimated nearly 30 of the fighters were al-Qaeda-linked rebels of the Nusra Front and the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, some 20 were Shiite fighters from Iraq, and about 25 more were either Syrian government forces or fighters from the Lebanese Shiite armed group Hezbollah. He said at least two Syrian media activists were also killed as they covered the clashes.
     
He bases his information on a network of activists on the ground, as well as employees of military hospitals who fill him in on army casualties.
     
The Ghouta area adjoins the international airport in Damascus, and has also been used by rebels to threaten the capital.
     
Assad's forces blockade rebel-held areas where they can, to starve out civilians and pressure fighters into surrendering.
    
One of the media activists killed was Amer Tabajo, who provided information to many Western-based media outlets over the past three years using the alias of Mohammed Saeed. Abdurrahman identified him by his real name.
     
There was no word on the battle from government media.


AP