[An Nahar] Violence killed at least 69 people, including 38 civilians, in Syria on Thursday after one of the bloodiest days of the 15-month revolt left nearly 150 dead, a human rightsWhen they're defined by the state or an NGO they don't mean much...
watchdog said.
Two bombs went
kaboom!outside the Palace of Justice in central Damascus
...Capital of the last remaining Baathist regime in the world...
on Thursday, state television
... and if you can't believe state television who can you believe?
reported.
The bombs, which it described as terrorist attacks, went
kaboom!in the car park outside the court complex in the al-Marjeh district, but a third did not explode.
A police source told Agence La Belle France Presse magnetic bombs went
kaboom!in two judges' cars in the open-air car park, while a third was in the process of being defused.
He said three people were hurt, without identifying them, and that 18 cars were damaged
Also in Damascus, a woman was killed by sniper fire, as military operations continued outside the capital, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
Twelve members of the same family, including three children and four women were killed in shelling in the Damascus suburb of Douma, while six people and one rebel fighter were killed in shooting and festivities with regime forces attempting to storm the town, the Britannia-based watchdog said.
Four non-combatants were killed elsewhere in the province in festivities and shooting.
And in the town of Irbin, four soldiers were killed in an ambush by rebels, the Observatory said.
In Deir Ezzor in the east, eight people were killed, including women and kiddies, in shelling and fierce fighting between rebels and troops backed by helicopters in several neighborhoods of the city, the watchdog said.
Ten people were killed in the central province of Homs, including four rebels and two civilians who died in al-Hosn village amid festivities with government troops and militiamen.
The Local Coordination Committees, made up of activists on the ground, reported renewed shelling in Homs city and in Rastan, whose power and water systems are suffering "complete disruption".
In the southern province of Daraa, three people were killed in shelling and sniper fire, while in the northwestern province of Idlib, a rebel fighter and a civilian were killed by regime forces, the Observatory said.
Meanwhile,...back at the bake sale, Umberto's Mom's cannoli were a big hit...
at least 19 member of the regime forces were killed in festivities with rebels in the provinces 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...
, Daraa, Deir Ezzor, Homs and Idlib.
The deaths came after at least 149 people, 77 of them civilians, were killed on Wednesday in one of the bloodiest days of the uprising, the Observatory said.
More than 15,800 people have been killed in Syria, the majority of them civilians, since the start of the uprising against Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir
Pencilneckal-Assad
Despoiler of Deraa...
's rule in March last year, according to the Observatory's figures.