Syrian war planes bombed a rebel headquarters near the Turkish border on Monday but appeared to miss their target, opposition activists in the region said.
"The (Free Syrian Army) joint command is located in a school. It seems they have missed it. There were two jets - one of them looked like a reconnaissance aircraft. They had been flying over the area for an hour," said activist Mohammad Abdallah.
They said a Turkish fighter was scrambled to the area. There was no immediate comment from Turkish authorities about the incident, which occurred in the village of Atima, across the border from the Turkish village of Bukulmez in Hatay province.
Syrian rebels captured a helicopter base just outside Damascus Sunday in what an activist called a "blow to the morale of the regime" near President Bashar Assad's seat of power, while the bombardment of a village near the capital killed at least eight children.
Activists said the children were killed when Syrian warplanes bombed the village of Deir al-Asafir just outside the Damascus. The village is close to suburbs of the capital that has been witnessing clashes, shelling and air raids between troops and rebels over the past months.
The Britain-based Syrian observatory for Human Rights said the bombardment of the village killed eight children. Another activist group, the Revolution Command Council said 10 children were killed when warplanes struck the village as they played outdoors.
An amateur video showed two girls lying dead in a street while the bodies of two bloodied dead boys were in the back seat of a car parked nearby. Several other wounded children were seen rushed for treatment.
Another video showed the bodies of two dead boys inside what appeared to be a makeshift hospital as others received treatment from injuries while lying on the floor.
The activist videos appeared genuine and corresponded to other AP reporting about the events depicted. Syria restricts the access of reporters.
The director of the Observatory, Rami Abdul-Rahman, said rebels seized control of the Marj al-Sultan base on the outskirts of Damascus on Sunday morning. He said at least 15 rebels and eight soldiers were killed in the fighting that started a day earlier. The rebels later withdrew from the base.
Rebels appear to be trying to take over air bases and destroy aircraft in order to prevent the regime from using them in attacks against opposition forces around the country.
The rebels have no protection against the attack helicopters and fighter jets that have been blasting their positions.
Rebels have been attacking air bases in different parts of Syria, mostly in the northern regions of Idlib and Aleppo.
Positions:
Russian Prime Minister Dmitry
Medvedev, speaking before a visit to Paris on Monday, criticized France's
support for the Syrian opposition and accused European Union leaders of
indecisiveness in dealing with the region's economic crisis.
France became the first European power to recognize
Syria's new opposition coalition as the sole representative of its people and
said on Nov. 13 it would look into arming rebels against President Bashar
al-Assad once they formed a government.
Medvedev, who stepped down as president in
May to make way for Vladimir Putin, said such a decision was
"unacceptable".
"The desire to change a political
regime in another state through recognition of some political force as the sole
sovereign representative seems to me not entirely civilized," Medvedev
told French journalists in an interview cleared for publication on Monday.
Medvedev echoed Putin's statements that
Russia takes a neutral stance and is not seeking to prop up Assad, saying that
"Russia supports neither Assad's regime nor the opposition."
Russia and France have been sharply at odds
over Syria during a conflict activists say has killed more than 38,000 people
since protests began in March 2011. France and other Western states have criticized
Russia for vetoing three UN Security Council resolutions aimed to pressure
Assad.
REUTERS/AP