Syrian forces kill 30 deserters in ambush - opposition

Syrian forces killed at least 30 army deserters in an ambush on the Damascus Airport road on Tuesday as opposition fighters were guiding them on foot to a rebel-held district, opposition sources said.
  
"They were crossing the highway to Eastern Ghouta when they were ambushed," a rebel commander in the region said on condition of anonymity. He was referring to a part of the eastern outskirts of Damascus that is held by the opposition.

Earlier on Tuesday, Syrian activists said that fighting has intensified as government troops and rebels battle for control of the international airport in the northern city of Aleppo and nearby army bases.    

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that clashes erupted anew around the airport's facility. The rebels have been trying to seize the strategic facility for weeks, overrunning checkpoints and capturing a smaller military base that provides military protection for the airbase.                    

The Observatory, added that rebels have also intensified their assault on the Nairab and Mannagh air bases near the Aleppo airport, as well as on an airfield nearby known as Kweires.                         

This as, the Syrian “Al-Watan Daily” stressed that the Syrian army is capable of continuing the “war defending the country" for several years, noting that the call launched by the Syrian Fatwa Council on the people to stand by the army aims at encouraging them to defend their land instead of just “keeping up with the news of the battles”.       

The newspaper said that the Fatwa or edict council urged people to participate in defending "their country and honor, because Syria is being invaded from all fronts.”       

The daily quoted sources close to the Syrian army as saying that the army is “fine”, as the soldiers have been fighting, for two years, the fiercest battles in the name of the Syrian people.                      

On the humanitarian file, Russia sent on Tuesday a new aircraft loaded with more than 10 tons of aid including blankets and food to the affected Syrian people.                

Separately, Ukraine's Foreign Ministry confirmed that a Ukrainian journalist who was kidnapped in Syria is free after more than 150 days in captivity.                          

Ministry spokesman Yevhen Perebiynis said the reporter, Ankhar Kochneva, was expected to contact the Ukrainian embassy in Damascus later in the day.                     

Kochneva, who has written for Syrian and Russian newspapers, was kidnapped in western Syria on Oct. 9 and reportedly held by members of the Free Syrian Army opposition group. Perebiynis said he had no further information on her.                      

The Russian newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda quoted Kochneva as saying she walked away from the house where she was held, skirted a rebel guardpost and then walked about 15 kilometers (9 miles) through fields until finding a villager who helped her.               

According to the newspaper, Kochneva said she was abducted near the city of Homs while riding in a taxi to Damascus.                        

The abductors released a video in which Kochneva said she was working as a Russian agent, but the newspaper quoted her as saying the recording was made under duress.        

"They forced me to say that I came to Syria on the instruction of Russian spies. They forced me with threats. I refused at first, but they said 'then we'll kill you'," she said.


REUTERS/AP/LBCI

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