Pro-regime forces declared
on Tuesday that they had retaken the large
Arkoub district of Aleppo, the country’s second city, but it was reported that clashes
are ongoing between troops and rebels in the area.
On another note, 7 were injured as bombs planted by rebels blew up on Tuesday at a school used by security forces and pro-government militias in the Syrian capital of Damascus, activists and rebels said.
"At exactly 9:35 a.m., seven improvised devices were set off in two explosions to target a school used for weekly planning meetings between shabbiha militias and security officers," said Abu Moaz, a leader of Ansar al-Islam, one of the rebel groups that have joined the 18-month-old revolt against President Bashar al-Assad.
The Syrian Observatory for
Human Rights announced the death of a girl on Tuesday dawn; the girl was shot
by pro-regime troops who targeted the car she was in on the Damascus-Aleppo
international road.
Separately, Free Syrian Army leader Qasem Saad Eddine survived an assassination attempt perpetrated by pro-regime gunmen in Hama, according to the FSA's media official.
On the other hand, a top Islamist
lawyer said Tuesday the nephew of former Al-Qaeda leader in Iraq Abu Musab
al-Zarqawi was among six Jihadists arrested in Jordan on Saturday as they tried
to cross into Syria.
In another incident, Syrian mortar shells hit the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights on Tuesday but no injuries were reported, the Israeli military said.
Tuesday's shells were not aimed at Israel but at rebels in Syrian villages close to the Golan frontier and were part of the ongoing fighting in Syria, said an Israeli army spokesman, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with military regulations.
The Israeli army said it has filed a complaint to the United Nations peacekeeping force that patrols the tense region between Israel and Syria. There have been concerns in Israel that violence could spill over from Syria, and that the long-quiet frontier area could become a new Islamist front against the Jewish state.
The Israeli-annexed Golan Heights was captured from Syria in 1967.
International Positions:
Qatari Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani said on Tuesday that Arab nations should intervene in Syria "given the U.N. Security Council's failure to stop the civil war in the country."
"The Security Council failed to reach an effective position. In view of this, I think that it is better for the Arab countries themselves to interfere out of their national, humanitarian, political and military duties and do what is necessary to stop the bloodshed in Syria," Sheik Hamad, speaking through an interpreter, said in a U.N. General Assembly speech.
Earlier today, Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem Al Thani called
for devising an alternative plan in Syria within weeks and imposing a no-fly
zone to ensure a safe haven in the country “should international envoy Akhdar
Ibrahimi fail to achieve progress.”
For his part, Egyptian President Mohammad Morsi mentioned
that his country opposes the intervention of any foreign force in the Syrian issue,
even if it were supporting President's Assad resignation of the Syrian
authority.
Speaking before the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon said that the situation in Syria is worsening, adding
"the Syrian conflict is a regional disaster that threatens world peace."
For his part, U.S. President Barack Obama reiterated that the regime of President Bashar Assad "must come to an end" in Syria.
In turn, French President Francois Hollande said that the United Nations must "immediately" provide protection to areas liberated by rebels in northern Syria, adding that President Bashar al-Assad's government had no future on the international stage.
"The Syrian regime ... has no future among us," Hollande said in his first speech at the United Nations General Assembly. "Without any delay, I call upon the United Nations to provide immediately to the Syrian people all the support it asks of us and to protect liberated zones."
For the full LBCI report, watch the video above.
REUTERS/AP/LBCI