Syrian warplanes bombed the town of Aazaz close to the Turkish border on Sunday, destroying at least five homes, causing hundreds of people to flee and stirring panic at a Syrian refugee camp just inside Turkey, Turkish officials said.
Most of the bombs hit the center of Aazaz, around three kilometers (two miles) from the Turkish border in an area dominated by Syrian rebels, but at least one landed 500 meters from Turkish soil, one official said.
"It is very close to the Turkish border ... There was also some bombing in the center of Aazaz. Around 500 people were trying to come into Turkey," he said.
Asked if there had been any response from the Turkish military, which has frequently scrambled fighter jets along the border and fired back in kind when stray Syrian shells hit its soil, the official said: "Not yet."
Explosions could be heard several kilometers inside Turkish territory, unnerving people in a refugee camp in the Turkish town of Kilis where some fear they could still be a target of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's forces.
"The Assad warplanes followed the refugees ... They fired rockets and people were very scared, they felt they would be massacred," a Syrian rebel fighter told Reuters after speaking to his brother inside the camp.
Several Scud missiles fired at rebels by Syria have landed "fairly close" to the Turkish border, NATO's top military commander said on Friday, explaining why Patriot batteries are being stationed in Turkey.
Separately, at least 25 people were killed on Sunday when Syrian government forces attacked the town of Helfaya in Hama province with warplanes and artillery for the first time since February, opposition activists said.
A Youtube video showed at least three bodies lying in a street and several more inside cars, some disfigured beyond recognition. Body parts lay near walls and in a house nearby.
An activist who declined to be named said the town, a rebel stronghold, came under fire after insurgent fighters attacked several checkpoints just outside it.
Earlier in the day, Syrian fighter jets fired at least two rockets at the Palestinian Yarmouk camp in Damascus on Sunday, for the first time since the revolt against President Bashar al-Assad erupted last year, activists in the capital said.
They said dozens of people were killed when at least one rocket hit a mosque in the camp sheltering refugees who fled the violence in nearby suburbs of Damascus.
Yarmouk, in southern Damascus, is part of an arc sweeping from the east to southwest of the Syrian capital where Assad's forces have been trying for several weeks to push back rebels from the gates of his power base.
Separately, rebels said they
seized a Syrian army infantry college near the northern city of Aleppo
after five days of fighting with forces loyal to President Bashar
al-Assad.
A commander from the Islamist Tawheed Brigade said his men helped take the building on Saturday.
"At least 100 soldiers have been taken prisoners and 150 decided to
join us. The soldiers were all hungry because of the siege," he added.
Earlier, violence raged in various rebel-held towns in the Capital's
suburb, and Syrian troops pounded a flashpoint district in southern Damascus on
Sunday.
In this context, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said
that the army shelled the district of Assali, as well as the towns of Irbin and
Harasta, east of Damascus.
The Observatory added that there were sporadic clashes between
rebels and troops near Harasta.
Irbin and Harasta are in the Eastern Ghuta area of Damascus
province, home to some of the rebel Free Syrian Army's fiercest and best
organized groups.
Southwest of the capital, tanks shelled the town of Daraya, which
the army has been trying to retake for almost a month, activists said.
"Tanks renewed shelling the town of Daraya, while warplanes
overflew the area," said the Syrian Revolution General Commission, a
grassroots network of anti-regime activists.
POSITIONS:
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said on Sunday he believed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad would fall soon and that the new opposition coalition had to be supported to prevent extremists taking control.
"I think that the end is nearing for Bashar al-Assad," Fabius told RFI radio.
Turkish Minister of Foreign Affairs Ahmet
Davutoglu said that the issue of missiles coming to Turkey is not a development
that will affect the countries around Turkey or the region itself. And what
one might have perceived as a reaction of Russia, should be taken in an
appropriate context.
"When Mr Putin visited Turkey, this topic was not even
brought up as a problem between the two countries; therefore, it is not accurate
to portray these matters as a part of some problem," he added.
Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said on Sunday the rebels in Syria cannot emerge victorious from the 21-month-long conflict.
Nasrallah, a staunch ally of President Bashar al-Assad, said: "The situation in Syria is getting more complicated (but) anyone who thinks the armed opposition can settle the situation on the ground is very very very mistaken."