Earlier and on a separate note, the military ships tasked with eliminating Syria’s chemical arsenal returned to port on Monday as they recognized that an end-of-year deadline for the removal of Syrian chemical weapons could no longer be met, a Norwegian spokesman said.
A Norwegian frigate HNoMS Helge Ingstad was ordered back to port in the nearby island of Cyprus along with a Danish warship that had been deployed to escort the dangerous cargo to destruction under international supervision, spokesman Lars Hovtun said.
He gave no new date for the planned shipment.
The international disarmament mission in Syria had acknowledged on Saturday that it was "unlikely" the weapons could be transported to the Syrian port of Latakia in time for the December 31 deadline set for the removal of key weapons components.
Assange’s father meets Assad:
“The Australian” newspaper reported that Julian Assange’s father met President Bashar al-Assad during a visit to Damascus last week as a member of “a solidarity delegation.”
A photograph of the meeting, posted on the Syrian presidency’s Twitter feed and released by the state news agency, showed Mr. Assange’s biological father, John Shipton, seated two places away from President Assad.
On the field:
Syrian activists said a missile struck a bus in a rebel-held area of the northern city of Aleppo, killing at least 10 people.
The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Tuesday that another missile landed nearby as medics were evacuating the wounded from the first explosion.
The Observatory said the missiles were fired from a plane and that at least two children were among the killed. It gave no further details on the missiles used.
Syrian forces have killed over 500 people, mostly civilians, since Dec. 15, in an intensified bombing campaign of Aleppo, mostly dropping crude dynamite-filled barrels over rebel neighborhoods.
The fighting has divided the city into rebel-held areas and those loyal to the government of President Bashar Assad. REUTERS/AP/LBCI