Twenty-six people were killed in a
rocket attack near the northern Syrian city of Aleppo on Tuesday, a human
rights monitoring group with a network of sources on the ground said.
"Sixteen Syrian regular army
soldiers were killed in Khan al-Assal," Rami Abdelrahman, head of the
Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, told Reuters. "Ten more died in
hospital but I cannot confirm if they are civilians or soldiers."
Syria's government and rebels
accused each other of firing a rocket loaded with chemical agents outside the
northern city on Tuesday. Abdelrahman said he could neither confirm nor deny
reports of chemical weapons and referred to the strike as a "rocket
attack."
In this context, Syria's Information
Minister Omran al-Zoabi accused rebels of firing chemical weapons in the
northern province of Aleppo and said that Turkey and Qatar, which have
supported rebels fighting to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad, bore
"legal, moral and political responsibility" for the attack, state
television reported.
It quoted Zoabi as saying the rebels
fired a rocket from the Nairab district of southeast Aleppo city into the town
of Khan al-Assal, 5 miles (8 km) southwest of the city, calling it a
"dangerous escalation". Zoabi also dismissed allegations alluding to
the use of those weapons by regime forces saying: "Our armed forces
absolutely could not use, not now, nor at any time, nor in the past, any weapon
banned by international law."
Damascus also blamed Turkey and
Qatar for the death of 16 people in Aleppo.
A Syrian rebel commander denied
state media reports on that opposition forces were behind Aleppo's attack,
saying the government had fired a rocket with chemical agents on the town of
Khan al-Assal.
"We were hearing reports from
early this morning about a regime attack on Khan al-Assal, and we believe they
fired a Scud with chemical agents. Then suddenly we learned that the regime was
turning these reports against us," said Qassim Saadeddine, a senior rebel
and spokesman for the Higher Military Council in Aleppo. "The rebels were
not behind this attack."
Free Syrian Army spokesman
reiterated the stance of the Syrian rebel commander saying regime forces
launched the attack "using a long-range missile".
"Fighting was raging in Khan
al-Assal this morning and the regime's army hit the town with a long-range
missile equipped with a chemical warhead. It also hit the area with
conventional weapons from the air and with artillery," Louay al-Meqdad
said.
This as, a Turkish government
official rejected an accusation from Syria that Turkey bore responsibility for
a possible chemical attack in the northern province of Aleppo.
"This is a baseless accusation,
the Syrian government has accused Turkey in the past as well," the
official told Reuters.
As for Britain, it said that it was
aware of media reports about a chemical weapons attack in Syria, adding that
the use or proliferation of chemical weapons there would demand a serious
response from the international community.
"The UK is clear that the use
or proliferation of chemical weapons would demand a serious response from the
international community and force us to revisit our approach so far," a
Foreign Office spokeswoman said.
As for Russia, it accused Syrian
rebels of using chemical weapons and said it was an extremely alarming and
dangerous development.
"A case of the use of chemical
weapons by the armed opposition was recorded early in the morning of March 19
in Aleppo province," the Russian Foreign Ministry said after President
Bashar al-Assad's government and rebels accused each other of launching a
deadly chemical attack.
"We are very seriously concerned
by the fact that weapons of mass destruction are falling into the hands of the
rebels, which further worsens the situation in Syria and elevates the
confrontation in the country to a new level," the ministry said in a
statement.
Meanwhile, the White House said
it was looking carefully at allegations that chemical weapons were used in
Syria, but said it had no evidence to substantiate charges that the opposition
had used such weapons.
"We are looking carefully at the
information as it comes in," White House spokesman Jay Carney told
reporters. "This is an issue that has been made very clear by the
president to be of great concern to us."
On a similar note, reports emerged
stating that Syrian rebels seized a guard post near Tel Shehab at the Jordanian
border and a tank brigade headquarters in the Naama region of southern Daraa
province, after violent clashes with regime forces.
On Monday evening, Syrian opposition
leaders chose Western-educated technocrat Ghassan Hitto as provisional prime
minister in what they hope will be the first step to fill a power vacuum
arising from a two-year-long revolt against President Bashar al-Assad.
At a meeting of the Syrian National
Coalition in Istanbul that stretched well into the night, Hitto received 35
votes of around 50 cast by coalition members.
"I give great thanks to the
heroes and revolutionaries of the Syrian people. We are with you," Hitto
told coalition members in brief remarks after he was named.
Hitto added that the cabinet's
priority is toppling President Bashar al-Assad's regime and called on Syrian
armed forces and soldiers to support the people in their revolt.
He also called on the International
Community to recognize the opposition government as the sole representative of
the Syrian people and mentioned that the cabinet will not participate in
dialogue with the regime.
As for the file of the refugees, PM
Hitto said that the opposition will work on their return to the "liberated
land".
Fifty-year old Hitto, who has U.S.
citizenship and worked in the communications sector in the United States before
working on securing humanitarian assistance for the uprising, is seen a
centrist figure within the opposition.
He will have to secure funding of at
least $500 million a month for an alternative administration to deliver
services, reopen schools and pay public employees in regions where central
authority had collapsed, a coalition official said.
With large swathes of Syria falling
to the opposition in the last few weeks while still being subjected to
devastating artillery and aerial bombardment, as well as ballistic missile
attacks, Hitto faces a daunting task in setting up an administration to
compensate for the collapse of the central government.
Assad is using his government's
ability to still deliver some services, such as fuel and the Internet, to
placate several regions that contain supply routes to his forces, according to
opposition sources.
At least 70,000 people have been
killed since a peaceful protest movement led by Syria's Sunni Muslim majority
broke out two years ago against four decades of family rule by Assad, who
belongs to the minority Alawite sect, and his father, the late Hafez al-Assad.
The demonstrations were met by
bullets, eventually sparking a Sunni backlash and a mostly Islamist armed
insurgency increasingly spearheaded by the al Qaeda-linked al-Nusra Front,
creating a political dilemma for regional and Western powers and deepening the
Shi'ite-Sunni split in the Middle East.
LBCI/REUTERS
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