Syrian troops backed by helicopter gunships clashed with rebels near a barracks in 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...
on Friday as battles broke out around a military airport elsewhere in the northern province, monitors said.
In Damascus
...Capital of the last overtly fascist regime in the world...
, state news agency SANA said the army unearthed the bodies of 25 people shot execution-style in the Qadam district and blamed "armed terrorist groups," the regime's term for rebels.
In other developments, a masked gunman on a cycle of violence killed prominent Kurdish activist Mahmoud Wali on Thursday in northeastern Syria, fellow activists said.
And a tolerated opposition group said two members -- Abdel Aziz Khayer and Iyas Ayash -- had gone missing along with the man who had collected them from Damascus airport after they returned from a trip to China to discuss an end to the violence.
The National Coordination Committee for Democratic Change groups Arab nationalists, Kurds and socialists.
In the Arkoub district of Aleppo, fighting erupted overnight near the Hanano army barracks, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
Several districts of the northern metropolis, including Sakhur in the northeast and Bustan al-Qasr in the center, came under overnight attack, the Britannia-based monitoring group said.
Elsewhere in the province, fighting broke out between troops and rebels near the Meng military airport, it said.
Military airfields have been a key rebel target because the regime is increasingly using air power to launch devastating strikes.
Northwest of the capital, the Observatory reported a massive kaboom believed to have been a car boom. Heavy gunfire was heard afterwards but there were no immediate reports of casualties.
In the central province of Homs, a civilian was killed in dawn shelling of Rastan, while the eastern city of Deir Ezzor and the town of Daal in the southern province of Daraa were also bombarded.
In Damascus, SANA said, soldiers acting on a tip-off from local residents found a mass grave containing 25 bodies with their hands tied and eyes masked. They had been kidnapped and killed by rebels, it said.
Meanwhile,
...back at the laboratory the fumes had dispersed, to reveal an ominous sight...
a U.N. commission investigating rights violations in Syria said it should be allowed to continue its work and get more resources.
In its latest report, the commission accused the regime and, to a lesser extent, rebel forces of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Protesters erupted into the streets after the main weekly Moslem prayers, as on every Friday since the revolt broke out in March 2011, activists said.
This week's slogan for protests was "the beloved of the Prophet in Syria are being massacred," reflecting demonstrations in several Moslem states over a U.S.-produced film mocking the Prophet Mohammed.
There were demonstrations in the capital and in Damascus province, as well as in Daraa, Hama, Aleppo and Hasaka.
Security forces fired on gatherings in the Qusur and Al-Arbain districts of Hama, and a number of people were placed in long-term storage
... anything you say can and will be used against you, whether you say it or not...
, while some demonstrators were maimed in the Aleppo provincial town of Atareb.
At least 11 people were killed in violence on Friday, the Observatory said, a day after as many as 225 died, including at least 30 in a petrol station blast in Raqa in the north, blamed on a regime air raid.
According to the Observatory, at least 29,000 people have been killed in the 18-month revolt against
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneckal-Assad
Lord of the Baath...
Meanwhile,
...back at the laboratory the fumes had dispersed, to reveal an ominous sight...
Syria's information minister denied that Assad had granted an exclusive interview to Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram al-Arabi, which claimed he hit out at Soddy Arabia
...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in their national face...
, Turkey and Qatar, accusing them of arming Syrian rebels and insisting they will not win.
Omran al-Zohbi said Assad had had an informal conversation with nine Egyptian journalists and that his comments had been taken out of context.
On the humanitarian front, Syria's ally Russia flew in almost 80 tonnes of food aid, SANA reported.
And Iraq denied permission for a
North Korean aircraft to cross its airspace on its way to Syria over suspicions it was carrying arms and advisers, an official in Storied Baghdad...located along the Tigris River, founded in the 8th century, home of the Abbasid Caliphate...
said.