Updated on
Summary Aleppo has seen nearly two months of fierce clashes between regime forces and rebels.
The FSA has already succeeded in forcing planes to fly at a higher altitude -- making their strikes less accurate -- and to limit the number of flights from certain key airports, Ahmed al-Khatib, FSA spokesman in Damascus province, told AFP via Skype.The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said several rebel-held districts of the northern city were bombarded, with at least 11 people killed when a helicopter gunship targeted a crossroads in Tariq al-Bab.It did not say whether the victims were rebels or civilians, but distributed video footage showing several bodies, some bloodied and others badly burned.In the south of the city, Bustan al-Qasr was bombarded and fighting was reported at Kalasseh, residents said, while a military source reported clashes in the western neighbourhood of Saif al-Dawla.The Local Coordination Committees (LCC), which organise anti-regime protests on the ground, said the military used artillery against the Fardoss district of the city.The Observatory earlier reported bombing in the Karam al-Jabal region of Aleppo province that killed four people overnight, while troops and rebels battled in the capital Damascus.It also said a former MP, Ahmad al-Turk, was shot dead by security forces who raided his house in Harasta in Damascus province at dawn and arrested his son.The Observatory said a car bomb exploded in the Rokn Eddin neighbourhood of the capital, without causing casualties, while there was also shelling in Tadamun in its southern suburbs.LCC activists reported heavy fighting overnight in the Qaboon district of Damascus.Violence nationwide on Thursday killed at least 53 people, most of them civilians, according to the Observatory which says that more than 27,000 people have been killed in nearly 18 months of violence across the country.In neighbouring Lebanon, Maronite Christian Patriarch Bishara Rai said Pope Benedict XVI will call on the world to stop arming belligerents in the crisis when he begins a three-day visit to Syrias neighbour on Friday.And in Syrias northern neighbour Turkey, Hollywood star and UN special envoy Angelina Jolie and UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres met some of the 12,000 refugees at Oncupinar camp in the southeastern city of Kilis.Ankara has called for safe zones to protect people on Syrian soil, but the proposal fell on deaf ears at the UN Security Council last month.
