Clashes surge over various Syrian regions as Lebanon ask for refugee aid grants

Syrian ground and air forces bombarded rebel strongholds on the outskirts of Damascus and other areas around the country Friday while anti-government forces targeted a military post near the capital with a car bomb, activists said.            

The British based Observatory for human rights said that a car bomb blew up outside a military intelligence building in the northern Damascus suburb of Nabk but had no immediate word on casualties.                        

An amateur video posted online showed a strong explosion with black smoke billowing from Nabk and the narrator said the blast targeted the military intelligence facility.                

This violence came two days after the U.N. said that more than 60,000 people have been killed since Syria's crisis began in March 2011; a figure much higher than previous opposition estimates.                       

On Thursday night, the army command said in a statement that troops carried out operations in suburbs of the capital including Douma and Daraya.          

In the north, rebels resumed a week-old offensive against regime-held airbases. The government's air power poses the biggest obstacle to advances by opposition fighters.         

Activists said there were battles around the military air base of Taftanaz in the northern province of Idlib close to the Turkish border and near the international airport of Aleppo, Syria's largest city and commercial center.             

Aleppo airport has been closed since Monday. A government official in Damascus said the situation is relatively quiet around the facility, adding that it is up to civil aviation authorities to resume flights.             

Separately, hundreds of Jordanians and Syrians gathered outside the Syrian Embassy in Amman on Friday to protest against Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad, and to show their support for the Syrian people and the Free Syrian Army.         

Protesters chanted anti-Syrian regime slogans and called on the Syrian people to fight until victory.         


POSITIONS:                        

Lebanon, now a haven for approximately 170,000 Syrians fleeing civil war, has asked foreign donors for $180 million to help care for them and said it will register and recognize refugees after a year-long hiatus.         

The Syrian Ministry of foreign affairs considered that the UN Inquiry report issued on the 20th of December 2012 as inaccurate seemingly since it had information from one side without checking its validity.                 

Meanwhile, Australia warned its nationals who are participating in fights in Syria of incarceration penalties up to 20-years time, following reports on the killing of an Australian national on Sunday in fights sweeping through the country.                       

The spokesperson for the Australian Foreign Ministry said that the government was informed that over 100 Australians have participated in the Syrian war ongoing since 2011 but none of these reports have yet been confirmed.