Assad army shells northern cities

Assad troops pounded the liberated Shaar district of Aleppo, killing 11 people, while 11 others, including seven freedom fighters, were killed elsewhere in Syria's northern city.

Meanwhile, the top commander of Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guard has said that the elite unit has high-level advisers in Lebanon and Syria but remains undecided on whether to send military reinforcements to help save Assad's regime.

Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari's comments mark the clearest indication of Iran's direct assistance to its main Arab allies, Assad and Lebanon's Hezbollah.

A Russian helicopter strike on Sunday on the town of Kafr Aweid in the northwest Syrian province of Idlib killed at least five children and one woman.

Fresh fighting erupted in the central Midan district, a battleground for more than a week. The Alawite army shelled Bustan al-Basha just north of Midan and pushed into neighboring Arkoub after seizing a mosque between the two areas following fierce fighting on Friday.

Violence has raged in Syria's commercial capital since July 20 when government forces launched an offensive aimed at driving rebels out of the city.

In Azimiyeh district, 17 unidentified bodies were found. Deaths in Syria are becoming more difficult to document. Elsewhere in the northern province, one freedom fighter was killed in the town of Al-Bab, while waves of residents fled Al-Safira, fearing an Alawite security forces operation.

In Damascus, fighting erupted at dawn in the northeast suburb of Harasta, while the Assad army also shelled the southern suburb of Al-Hajar al-Aswad from several directions.

Explosions also rocked the northeast suburb of Douma, while the liiberated Assali and Qadam districts in south Damascus were also bombarded.

The northwestern province of Idlib, where much of the countryside is controlled by the freedom fighters, was also pounded, and at least seven people were killed in an explosion targeting a bus on the road near Khirbet Ghazaleh in the southern province of Daraa.

Also in Homs province, shelling killed two civilians in the liberated town of Rastan, and a man was killed in shelling in Tal Kalakh bordering Lebanon.

Another man was killed by Alawite sniper fire in the eastern city of Deir Ezzor while fighting in the town of Albu Kamal on the Iraqi border killed a woman and a man.

At least 115 people, most of them civilians, were killed on Saturday.

Source: Agencies

Kavkaz Center