The Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) reported on Monday that the Syrian President Bachar al-Assad issued a general amnesty for the crimes committed until present.
Similarly, Assad
cut prisoners' sentences on Tuesday to mark a national holiday but activists
said it was a meaningless gesture without the release of thousands of political
detainees believed to be held in his jails.
The move reduced prison terms of inmates
held for both crimes and misdemeanors and also cut by a quarter the jail terms
of "Syrians who had joined the terrorists" - the term used by the
government to describe the rebels trying to topple Assad.
The decree was announced on state news
agency SANA but it did not say how many prisoners it covered.
Syrian opposition leader Moaz Alkhatib said
the reductions would be seen as a positive gesture only if the women and
children among the detainees were released in the coming days.
This as, Al-Ikhbariya television channel announced on its facebook page that it will air an interview with the Syrian President on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, at least 20 people were killed in air raids and rocket barrages on opposition strongholds in Damascus to halt a flow of rebel fighters into the capital, activists and opposition military sources said.
The bombardment, which concentrated on the north and east of Damascus and on the nearby suburb of Douma, a rebel stronghold, is among the heaviest in the capital since the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad began two years ago, they said.
Ten rebels also were killed in fighting in Adra, a contested residential and industrial town between Douma and Damascus where several army and intelligence compounds are located, and in the suburb of Harasta on the main highway north.
Video footage showed a bulldozer clearing rubble from a collapsed building in Douma, where activists said a child and two women were among those killed in an air raid by a Syrian MiG warplane and by multiple rocket rounds that hit the conservative Sunni Muslim suburb.
Douma and other Sunni working class towns that ring Damascus have been at the forefront of the revolt.
A rebel commander in Damascus who uses the alias Abu Hamza said opposition fighters based in eastern Ghouta, an expanse of built-up areas and farmland on the edge of Damascus, were moving to the inside of Damscus, especially to the neighborhoods of Qaboun and Barzeh, to minimize the possibility of chemical weapons being used against them.
Activists reported at least two instances where the army used chemical weapons during attacks on rebels in eastern Ghouta in the last few weeks.
There was no independent confirmation of the attacks, which followed the death of 26 people in a rocket attack near the city of Aleppo.
The authorities and rebels accused each other of firing a missile there carrying a load of chemicals.
While rebel brigades have been encroaching on Damascus, opposition sources say they lack the firepower to dislodge Assad's forces from fortress-like security compounds and army installations that dot the inside the city.
Assad's core forces, who mostly belong to his minority Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam that has controlled Syria since the 1960s, is also dug in the imposing Qasioun mountain, which is part of Damascus.
On the other hand, Belgian media are reporting that
police have conducted searches at numerous locations over the recruitment of
fighters to help rebels trying to overthrow Syrian leader Bashar Assad.
In a brief statement asking news
outlets to obscure the images of investigators in their photographs, Belgian
federal police confirmed that "a series of raids" were carried out
Tuesday morning.
The websites of several Belgian
news agencies, including the Le Soir and La Capitale newspapers, say raids were
conducted at 46 addresses in the cities of Brussels, Vilvoorde and Antwerp.
They also report that Fouad
Belkacem, former spokesman for the Islamic group Sharia4Belgium, had been arrested.
They said the exact number of arrests was unclear.
The newspaper’s report that
Belkacem is believed to have recruited young rebels to fight against the Assad
regime.
At least 70,000 people have been killed in the conflict, which began with peaceful demonstrations two years ago against four decades of rule by Assad and his late father, President Hafez al-Assad.
AP/REUTERS/LBCI
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