Mortar kills 15 at Damascus University, Syria says

By Oliver Holmes and Hamdi Istanbullu

BEIRUT/ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Fifteen Syrian students were killed when rebel mortar bombs hit a Damascus University canteen on Thursday, state-run news agency SANA said, as attacks intensified in the center of the capital.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition monitoring group, said a mortar killed 13 people at the university, without saying who fired the bombs.

Other activists confirmed the attack but no opposition group has denied or claimed responsibility.

Insurgents trying to end four decades of rule by the family of President Bashar al-Assad have formed a semi-circle around the capital and intensified attacks from positions on the outskirts this week.

A bastion for Assad's forces, the capital city is a crucial prize in a two-year-old uprising that has developed into a war in which more than 70,000 people have been killed.

Another 1.2 million Syrians have also fled to neighboring countries and North Africa, where they have registered as refugees or are awaiting processing, according to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

Highlighting the strain the conflict is placing on neighboring states, Turkey, host to about 260,000 of the refugees, denied on Thursday it had rounded up and deported hundreds of Syrians following unrest at a refugee camp.

SANA said mortar rounds landed in a canteen at the College of Architecture in Baramkeh, a central district near several government buildings, including the Defense Ministry, the headquarters for state media and Assad's official residence.

Pro-government Al-Ikhbariya TV showed images of doctors trying to resuscitate at least two young men and blood on the floor of what appeared to be an outdoor canteen. A young woman was shown walking in a hospital, her face bleeding heavily.

SANA quoted the president of Damascus University as saying the death toll, initially put at 12, had risen to 15 in what state and pro-government media called a terrorist attack.

Last weekend rebel groups sent out warnings on the Internet that they planned to intensify strikes on government and military sites in the city and warned residents they should leave to avoid what they called "Operation Shaking the Fort".

The United Nations said on Monday it would withdraw about half of its international staff from Damascus after a mortar bomb landed near their hotel.

The Syrian military has responded to rebel attacks with artillery shelling and air strikes on suburbs where rebels are entrenched among thousands of civilians trapped in crossfire.

On Thursday, opposition activists said rebels had taken the main bus station in northeastern Damascus. They provided footage of fighters walking around a deserted area and stamping on a framed picture of Assad. (http://link.reuters.com/peg96t)

Government reporting restrictions make it difficult to verify such accounts independently.

TURKISH DENIAL

The foreign ministry in Turkey denied on Thursday any Syrians had been expelled following unrest at the Suleymansah refugees camp, near the Turkish town of Akcakale

A group of 130 people, identified with the help of camera footage as being "involved in the provocations", decided to cross back into Syria voluntarily, either because they did not want to face judicial proceedings or because of repercussions from other refugees, the ministry said in a statement.

Witnesses said hundreds of Syrians were bused to the border after Wednesday's clashes in which refugees threw rocks at military police, who fired tear gas and water cannon.

"There has been a big deportation operation here, they got rid of lots of people. They kicked out two of my boys and three of my brother's sons. They came for my boys last night and told them to get their bags," one refugee at the camp told Reuters by telephone, giving her name as Saher.

Camp residents said young men started the protest against living conditions after faulty electrics set a tent on fire, injuring three brothers aged seven, 18 and 19, one of whom later died in hospital, according to Turkish media reports.

UNHCR said it was concerned about the reports and had taken them up with Turkey. Such action would violate U.N. conventions.

In a sign of divisions hampering international efforts to stem the conflict, Russia on Thursday accused the Arab League of abandoning support for a peaceful solution by giving a summit seat to the Syrian opposition.

Opposition leader Moaz Alkhatib took Syria's vacant seat on Tuesday at the Arab summit, which also lent its support to giving military aid to rebels fighting Assad.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov also cast doubt over the mandate of U.N.-Arab League mediator Lakhdar Brahimi.

"I just don't see how Mr. Brahimi can continue to be considered the representative not just of the United Nations but of the Arab League," Lavrov said in Moscow.

Russia has in the past vocally supported Brahimi, who has met in recent months with Russian and U.S. officials in talks which failed to bridge disagreements over Syria.

Russia, which has long supplied arms to Assad's government but says it is not delivering weapons that can be used in the civil war, vehemently opposes arming the rebels.

Moscow says it has pressed Assad's government to end violence and accuses Western and Arab states of failing to put enough pressure on his opponents to do so, and in many cases encouraging them to keep fighting.

Russia and China have blocked three resolutions in the U.N. Security Council, and Moscow says Assad's exit from power must not be a precondition for peace talks

(Additional reporting by Reuters TV, Erika Solomon in Beirut and Steve Gutterman in Moscow; Writing by Jason Webb; Editing by Michael Roddy)

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Mortar shells strike Damascus, killing at least 10

BEIRUT (AP) — Mortar shells crashed into an outdoor cafe at Damascus University on Thursday, killing at least 10 students in the deadliest of a rising number of mortar attacks in the heart of the Syrian capital.

The strikes have escalated as rebels fighting to topple President Bashar Assad try to enter the city, terrifying civilians whose support the opposition needs to advance its cause.

It was unclear who fired the rounds. The government blamed "terrorists," its blanket term for those fighting Assad's regime. Anti-regime activists accused the regime of staging the attack to turn civilians against the rebels.

Mortar strikes on Damascus are relatively new in Syria's crisis, which began in March 2011 with protests calling for Assad's ouster, then evolved into a civil war. The U.N. says more than 70,000 have been killed in the conflict.

Since last month, mortar shells have hit previously safe parts of the capital with increasing frequency. The near-daily strikes have frightened residents, and many have begun to avoid open areas and put plastic on their windows to help block flying glass from an explosion or shrapnel.

Some shells appear aimed at government targets, such as one of Assad's palaces and the general command of the Syrian army. Others have hit near civilian targets, including the Sheraton Hotel and a soccer stadium, both on the city's west side. Mortar shells also have struck in areas to the east, like the Christian neighborhood of Bab Touma.

Thursday's strike was the deadliest yet.

State-run Al-Ikhbariya TV showed video of the university cafe where blood pooled on tiles and plastic chairs and pens and eyeglasses littered the area. Later video showed people being treated in a hospital, including a woman with white bandages around her head and a man whose back was peppered with shrapnel wounds.

The dining facility belongs to the Faculty of Architecture in Damascus's central Baramkeh district.

State TV said 15 people were killed in the strike, but the official news agency, SANA, put the death toll at 10 and said dozens were wounded. It also reported three other mortar strikes nearby.

The opposition activist group, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, put the death toll at 13.

Similar mortar attacks on Tuesday killed at least three people and wounded dozens. Six people were killed by mortar shells in different parts of the city on March 11.

"No one anywhere in the world can imagine a more criminal act than this," SANA quoted Amer al-Mardini, the president of the university, as saying. He said he hoped the wounded would heal quickly and "resume their studies as soon as possible."

Anti-regime activists accused the regime of launching the attack to tarnish the opposition's image.

Elizabeth O'Bagy, who studies the Syrian rebels at the Institute for the Study of War, said it was not possible to determine who was behind the attack, but it appeared to fit the regime's pattern of escalation. In other aspects of the war, such as the use of airstrikes or Scud missiles, the regime has gone from trying to target rebels to more indiscriminate attacks on civilians, she said.

"Because of the fact that it does follow regime behavior, it is more likely to be a regime attack," she said, while acknowledging it could also have been a rebel misfire.

Rebels have established footholds in a number of Damascus suburbs but have only been able to push into limited areas in the south and northeast parts of the capital. The government has retained its grip of downtown Damascus, although the mortar strikes have deepened fear among many residents that they will soon see the violence that has damaged many other Syrian cities.

Thursday was not the first time Syria's universities have been targeted. On Jan. 15, twin blasts hit Aleppo University, killing more than 80 people. The opposition said the regime had bombed the university, while the government accused rebels of striking it with rockets.

Also Thursday, Ghassan Hitto, the newly elected prime minister of the main opposition bloc, said he was reviewing candidates for a planned rebel interim government. It will be a service-oriented administration with nine to 12 ministries and will be based inside Syria, Hitto said during a meeting with Syrian expats in Qatar.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Victoria Nuland said the head of the opposition Syrian National Coalition, Mouaz al-Khatib, has decided to continue serving until his six-month term ends in May. Al-Khatib resigned on March 24, citing frustration with the group and its level of international support. The Coalition rejected his resignation.

Syria's conflict threatens to destabilize neighboring countries, where more than 1 million refugees have fled to escape the violence.

In Jordan, on Syria's southern border, a riot broke out Thursday in a refugee camp after Jordanian authorities refused to let buses full of refugees return to Syria because of violence over the border. U.N. refugee liaison Ali Bibi said it was unclear how many refugees were involved in the melee at the Zaatari camp, but no one was injured.

To the north, Turkey denied reports that it was deporting hundreds of Syrian refugees for rioting on Wednesday in a camp in Akcakale after a fire killed a 7-year-old child. A camp official said local authorities identified 300 people involved in the uprising and prepared to deport them, but the government stopped them.

A Foreign Ministry official said 100 refugees asked to leave the camp and return to Syria on their own.

The U.N. refugee agency did not confirm the reports, but said it was concerned about possible deportations of refugees.

In Israel, on Syria's southeastern border, the military said it was beefing up medical teams along the border because of several cases of wounded Syrians crossing the frontier for medical care. Eleven Syrians have been treated in Israeli hospitals, including one who died from his wounds on Wednesday, a military official said. Others returned home after their conditions improved.

All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief reporters.

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Associated Press writers Albert Aji in Damascus, Syria; Suzan Fraser in Ankara, Turkey; Bradley Klapper in Washington; Josef Federman in Jerusalem and Dale Gavlak in Amman, Jordan, contributed to this report.

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Mortar shells in Damascus kill 3, wound 50

BEIRUT (AP) — Mortar shells struck a residential area in central Syria Wednesday, killing three people and wounding more than 50, including a number of women and children, state-run news agency said.

The latest mortar attacks came as Syrian government troops fought fierce battles with rebels for control of key neighborhoods in the northeast of the capital, residents and activists said.

SANA said "terrorists" targeted the al-Boukhtyar neighborhood of Damascus with mortars and that two of the mortar shells struck near an orphanage. The Syrian government refers to rebels fighting to topple President Bashar Assad as terrorists.

Rebels have stepped up mortar attacks on Damascus in recent weeks, striking deeper than ever into the heart of the city in a new tactic to try and loosen Assad's grip on his main stronghold.

The pro-government Al-Ekhbariya TV aired footage of the attacks, showing houses and cars on fire and firefighters working to extinguish the flames. People were shown weeping and cursing the rebels.

Also, a European Union staff member was killed in a rocket attack on an opposition stronghold south of the capital, the EU said.

Opposition fighters have been trying to advance into Damascus for weeks, battering regime checkpoints and military bases in the heavily fortified capital.

Both sides see Damascus as the ultimate prize in the civil war.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Wednesday's clashes were concentrated in the capital's neighborhoods of Jobar and Barzeh.

A resident in the area said shelling overnight "shook apartments" and terrified the inhabitants. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he feared for his safety.

A car bomb exploded outside a police station in Khan Sheih neighborhood, west of Damascus, the Observatory said. The Britain-based activist group also said fierce clashes broke out after the blast but had no immediate reports of casualties.

Fighting also raged in other Syrian cities, including Homs, where the military pounded rebel positions with artillery and carried out several airstrikes on the Baba Amr district, a former rebel stronghold which the opposition has tried to recapture in the past days.

In Brussels, EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said a policy officer with the European delegation in Syria was killed on Tuesday in the Damascus suburb of Daraya. It was the first death of an EU employee in the Syrian civil war.

Ahmad Shihadeh, 32, worked for the EU for five years, a spokesman for Ashton said Wednesday. He said Shihadeh had lived in Daraya, a suburb of Damascus that has been one of the main battlefields in the capital.

Ashton said he "died while providing humanitarian help to the community of Daraya," Ashton said. "Ahmad was known for his courage and selflessness."

Ashton took the occasion to call for an end to the conflict, which started in March 2011 as protests against Assad's authoritarian rule. The revolt turned into civil war after some opposition supporters took up arms to fight back a harsh government crackdown on dissent.

"As we approach the second anniversary of the uprising in Syria, I call again on all sides to take urgent steps to end the violence, which has led to the deaths of some 100,000 innocent citizens and over 1 million refugees seeking shelter in neighboring countries," she said.

According to U.N. figures, more than 70,000 people have been killed in the 2-year-old conflict and four millions Syrians driven from their homes. There was no immediate explanation of Aston's higher death toll.

Also Wednesday, a Ukrainian journalist who was kidnapped in Syria last year and escaped after being held by rebels for more than 150 days spoke of her ordeal to The Associated Press in Damascus.

Ankhar Kochneva said she was held by members of the Farouk Brigade of the Free Syrian Army in the central Homs province. She said in a phone interview that she "almost died" because of the shelling of the area she had been held, and that food was scarce while in captivity.

Kochneva wrote for Syrian and Russian newspapers before she was kidnapped in western Syria on Oct. 9. On Tuesday, Ukraine's Foreign Ministry confirmed that the journalist was freed.

In a phone interview Wednesday, the reporter told the AP she escaped from the house where she was being held while the guards were sleeping. She said she skirted a rebel guard post and fled with the assistance of villagers working in nearby fields.

She said no ransom was paid for her release.

"I would not want to buy my life, because they will by weapons with the money to kill civilians," she said.

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Associated Press writers Karin Laub in Beirut and Albert Aji in Damascus contributed.

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Mortar shells hit Damascus neighborhood, killing 6

DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — Mortar shells struck a predominantly Christian neighborhood and a football stadium at game time in Damascus on Monday, killing six civilians and wounding at least 24 in what appeared to be an escalating campaign by rebels to sow fear in the Syrian capital.

Opposition fighters trying to topple Syrian President Bashar Assad have stepped up mortar attacks on Damascus in recent weeks, striking deeper than ever into the heart of the city.

Rebel fighters tried in the past to establish bridgeheads in Damascus, but were pushed back to the suburbs by regime forces. Recent rebel mortar attacks on the city signal a new tactic in trying to loosen Assad's grip on his main stronghold.

In the latest attacks, four mortars hit Bab Sharqi, a predominantly Christian area known for its old churches. One shell fell in a park, two near an ice cream shop and a fourth hit a house nearby, said a government official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

Six people were killed and 24 wounded, officials said. It was one of the highest death tolls in recent mortar attacks on the capital.

A mortar shell also hit the Tishrin football stadium in another neighborhood, the central Barakmeh district, wounding several people during a game, according to the state-run news agency SANA.

Gen. Mowaffak Joumaa, head of the Syrian General Sports Federation, said the mortar landed just off the pitch during the second half of a game, causing light damage. Four players on the bench and a journalist were hurt, he said. They were taken to hospital and were in stable condition.

Mortar rounds struck the stadium once before, in late February, killing a player and injuring several during a practice session. Also last month, two mortar shells exploded near one of Assad's palaces, causing some damage.

There was no claim of responsibility for Monday's mortar attacks and it was not clear whether the Christian neighborhood and the football stadium were targeted or were struck by stray shells.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an anti-regime activist group, reported clashes between regime forces and rebels in the Jobar neighborhood, about two miles (three kilometers) east of the stadium.

The Syrian conflict erupted two years ago, initially as a largely peaceful uprising against Assad. In response to a brutal regime crackdown, Assad's opponents took up arms, sparking a civil war. More than 70,000 have been killed and some 4 million — out of a population of 22 million — have been forced from their homes by the fighting, according to U.N. estimates.

The fighting has affected most areas of Syria.

A U.N.-appointed commission on Syria said in a new report that the country appeared condemned to an "unimaginably bleak future."

Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, head of the panel investigating war crimes in Syria, said that "there are no more enclaves of stability in Syria today, and the civilian space is almost completely eroded."

He said the commission has collected evidence on 20 massacres in Syria, a reflection of the civil war's growing brutality. This includes three in the central city of Homs since December, he said.

Both sides are committing war crimes, but it appears that "government authorities have been involved more in regard to crimes against humanity," added commission member Vitit Muntarbhorn.

The commission began its work in August 2011 after being appointed by the 47-nation U.N. Human Rights Council.

In Brussels, EU foreign ministers reviewed Europe's blanket embargo against shipping arms to Syria.

The French foreign minister, Laurent Fabius, said the EU should consider allowing munitions to be sent to outgunned Syrian rebels.

"There is a lack of balance between the Assad regime, which has weapons coming from Iran and Russia — powerful weapons — and the (rebel) National Coalition, which doesn't have the same weapons," Fabius said.

He said that "we cannot accept such an unbalanced state, which leads to the slaughter of the population."

EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton and Lakhdar Brahimi, the special U.N.-Arab League envoy to Syria, said only a political solution can save Syria. Without one, "the situation will be similar to or even worse than Somalia," said Brahimi, who attended the meeting in Brussels.

The West has been reluctant to send weapons for fear they may fall into the hands of Islamic extremists who have become increasingly dominant in key battlegrounds in Syria.

But with the war locked in a stalemate, Britain last month persuaded the EU to soften the embargo and allow member states to provide non-lethal aid, such as armored vehicles. The U.S. also said this month it would for the first time provide non-lethal aid to the rebels.

The military deadlock was illustrated by the renewed fighting for control of Baba Amr, a poor neighborhood of the central city of Homs.

Last year, government forces besieged Baba Amr for a month before rebel forces withdrew and the government seized control on March 1. Hundreds of people were killed in the violence, including two foreign journalists.

On Sunday, rebels pushed back into Baba Amr, and fighting raged there on Monday. Syrian forces fired heavy machine guns and launched at least one airstrike, sending residents fleeing the area, carrying satchels and children.

It was unclear how much of the neighborhood rebels had seized or continued to hold.

Also Monday, a Ukrainian journalist kidnapped by Syrian rebels five months ago, told the news agency RIA Novosti that she had escaped and was on her way to Damascus.

Anhar Kochneva was working as an interpreter for a Russian TV crew when she was kidnapped Oct. 9, according to the Ukrainian government. Her kidnappers reportedly threatened to kill her unless a ransom was paid.

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Laub reported from Beirut. Associated Press writers John Heilprin in Geneva and Don Melvin in Brussels contributed to this report.

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