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Over 2,000 Syrians Including One General Flee to Turkey
[An Nahar]  Over 2,000 Syrians, including one defecting general, fled to Turkey on Thursday after a Syrian air strike on the northern rebel bastion of Aazaz in northern Syria, a Turkish diplomat said Friday.The latest group of 2,204 people brought the number of Syrian refugees in Turkey to more than 62,000, the diplomat told AFP on condition of anonymity. The last two weeks have seen a dramatic increase in refugee flow to Turkey triggered by fierce festivities between regime forces and rebel fighters for Syria's second biggest city of Aleppo ...For centuries, Aleppo was Greater Syria's largest city and the Ottoman Empire's third, after Constantinople and Cairo. Although relatively close to Damascus in distance, Aleppans regard Damascenes as country cousins... . The latest exodus of refugees including many injured came after a Syrian Turkey has been one of the main regional powers denouncing Syrian  Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneckal-Assad Light of the Alawites... 's regime and is being used as a rear base by several rebel groups. Turkish officials decline to give an exact number of defecting generals in camps, saying that some have been going back across the border to join in the fight against the Assad regime. Posted by: Fred 2012-08-18 |
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