Clashes suggest Sunni anger boiling over in Iraq

BAGHDAD (AP) — With Sunni gunmen beginning to confront the Shiite-led government's security forces head-on in northern and western Iraq, fears are growing fast of a return to full-scale sectarian fighting that could plunge the country into a broader battle merged with the Syrian civil war across the border.

With more than 100 people killed over the past two days, it's shaping up to be the most pivotal moment for Iraq since U.S. combat troops withdrew in December 2011.

"Everybody has the feeling that Iraq is becoming a new Syria," Talal Younis, the 55-year-old owner of a currency exchange in the northern city of Mosul, said Wednesday. "We are heading into the unknown. ... I think that civil war is making a comeback."

A crackdown by government forces at a protest site in the northern town of Hawija on Tuesday triggered the latest unrest. It has enraged much of the country's restive Sunni Arab minority, adding fuel to an already smoldering opposition movement and spawning a wave of bold follow-up clashes.

It is too soon to say whether the rage will lead to widespread insurrection in the largely Sunni cities of Mosul and Ramadi or, more significantly, spiral into open sectarian warfare in the streets of Baghdad.

The Iraqi capital is far more tightly controlled by security forces than the remote towns hit by the latest unrest, but insurgents continue to launch regular, well-coordinated waves of attacks inside Baghdad. Outright threats that all but disappeared as the last bout of sectarian fighting waned in 2008 are making a comeback too, like the leaflets signed by a Shiite militant group that began turning up on the doorsteps of Sunni households in Baghdad earlier this year.

The exact circumstances of the Hawija bloodshed remain murky, but there is outrage over the government's handling of the unrest and the fact that most of the 23 killed at the site were among the Sunni demonstrators.

Talal al-Zobaie, a Sunni lawmaker from the opposition Iraqiya bloc, described this week's events as a pivotal moment for the country.

"The crime in Hawija clearly shows that people have lost faith in their armed forces, which have been turned into a tool in the hands of the prime minister," he said. "Some people now think that the only way to protect themselves is to take up arms."

The raid in Hawija sparked clashes and a spate of other attacks, mostly targeting Sunni mosques, that killed at least 56 people on Tuesday. Raids by Sunni gunmen on army checkpoints broke out in the hours following the protest camp raid and continued into Wednesday.

In the most dramatic incident, armed tribesmen sealed off approaches to the Sunni town of Qara Tappah, about 120 kilometers (75 miles) northeast of Baghdad. When Iraqi troops backed by helicopters arrived to try to clear the makeshift roadblocks, fierce clashes erupted. Police say 15 gunmen and seven soldiers were killed.

Sunni tribesmen also battled soldiers throughout Wednesday in the town of Suleiman Beg, about 150 kilometers (95 miles) north of Baghdad. Four soldiers and 12 others, including gunmen, were killed.

The sense that violence could be spreading from a local dispute to other parts of the country is particularly worrying to many Iraqis.

"This could open the door for broader clashes if things are not contained soon," said Mahmoud Othman, a Kurdish lawmaker. "Hawija is a small town and it can be controlled, but the real problem will arise if Mosul or Ramadi decide to enter the armed struggle," he said.

Three gunmen were killed Wednesday when they attacked a security checkpoint near the former al-Qaida stronghold of Mosul, about 360 kilometers (225 miles) northwest of Baghdad.

Later, a car bomb struck a police patrol north of Baghdad, killing a policeman and two civilians. Another car bomb exploded after sunset near a bus stop in Baghdad's mostly Shiite neighborhood of Husseiniyah, killing seven people and wounding 23.

Hospital officials confirmed the casualty figures. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information to reporters.

Human Rights Watch urged Iraqi authorities to ensure that any investigation into the Hawija killings Tuesday take into account allegations that security forces used excessive force. The rights group noted that there have been reports that security forces attacked demonstrators without provocation.

Iraq's Defense Ministry said it entered the protest area to try to make arrests over an attack on a nearby checkpoint several days earlier, and its forces came under heavy fire from several types of weapons, as well as from snipers.

"This is one of those cases where ... a singular spark escalates tensions and mobilizes the population for renewed conflict," said Ramzy Mardini, an analyst at the Beirut-based Iraq Institute for Strategic Studies.

"War fatigue in Iraq is losing its pacifying effects and the rationale to pick up arms and fight again is finding fertile ground in Sunni land(s)."

The increasingly sectarian lines drawn in the Syrian civil war and the rise of Sunni Islamists in the region in the wake of the Arab Spring is also having an effect on the Sunni protest movement playing out in Iraq, he noted.

Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime is fighting against largely Sunni rebels who draw support from Turkey and Sunni Gulf states. Assad's Alawite sect is a branch of Shiite Islam, and his regime is backed by Shiite powerhouse Iran.

"Given what's happening at the regional level, there's a dangerous mixture of Sunni hubris and Shiite fear. These emotions coupled with political volatility and uncertainty renders an environment where miscalculations are most likely to occur," Mardini said.

At the same time, recent local elections — which have not yet been held in two largely Sunni provinces — have put Iraqi politicians of all stripes in campaign mode, and playing up their sectarian credentials is a way to rouse voters.

"You're not going to find Sunnis urging for calm," Mardini said. "Most ... are still in the mode of rabble-rousing and throwing the reddest of meats to a discontent and frustrated electorate."

Tuesday's bloodshed followed four months of largely peaceful protests staged by Iraq's Sunni minority against the government.

Many Sunnis are angered over what they see as an effort by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to sideline members of their sect within the power-sharing government. They say they face discrimination, particularly in the application of a tough anti-terrorism law that they believe unfairly targets them. The government frequently carries out arrests in Sunni areas on charges of ties to al-Qaida or the deposed Baathist regime of Saddam Hussein, a Sunni.

Emma Sky, a key civilian policy advisor for U.S. Army Gen. Ray Odierno when he was the top U.S. military commander in Iraq, said the events in Hawija exacerbate concerns that the conflicts in Syria and Iraq are merging.

"The fear is that the post-World War I settlement is unraveling," she said, referring to the agreement between Britain and France that divided up the heart of the Middle East and drew the modern borders of Syria and Iraq.

"The way to inoculate Iraq against all of this is national unity," she said. "If Iraq had wise politicians who actually came together for the good of the country, it could go in a different direction."

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AP writers Sameer N. Yacoub and Sinan Salaheddin contributed reporting.

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One dead, many wounded in Cairo cathedral clashes

By Ashraf Fahim

EL KHUSUS, Egypt (Reuters) - Five Egyptians were killed and eight wounded in clashes between Christians and Muslims in a town near Cairo, security sources said on Saturday, in some of the worst sectarian violence in Egypt for months.

Christian-Muslim confrontations have increased in Muslim-majority Egypt since the overthrow of former president Hosni Mubarak in 2011 gave freer rein to hardline Islamists repressed under his rule.

Four Christian Copts and one Muslim were killed when members of both communities started fighting and shooting at each other in El Khusus north of the Egyptian capital, the sources said. State news agency MENA put the death toll at four.

An angry crowd smashed shops belonging to Christians, residents said. A Reuters reporter saw a burned-out Coptic day care center and several damaged shops belonging to Christian traders. An apartment inhabited by Muslims was also burned.

Residents said the violence broke out on Friday when a group of Christian children were drawing on a wall of a Muslim religious institute.

A Reuters reporter saw what looked like a swastika drawn on the wall. Muslim residents said it had offended them because it looked like a cross.

"I saw the kids drawing on the wall after afternoon prayers so I grabbed them and told them to remove what they'd just written," said Mahmoud Mahmoud al-Alfi, a Muslim resident.

Then another man arrived and started beating the children, drawing a large crowd, he said. The situation escalated when someone drew a gun and fired into the air, killing one boy with a stray bullet.

"Suddenly the area was full of weapons," Alfi said, while weeping Muslim women sat nearby in front of a house, showing pictures of a man they said had been killed during the clashes.

The president's office expressed condolences to the victims and vowed to fight any sectarian violence.

"The presidency ... totally rejects any attempt against the unity and cohesiveness of Egyptian society and will decisively confront any attempt to spark sectarian strife among Egyptian people, Muslim and Christian," according to a statement.

Muslim leaders were also quick to condemn the sectarian violence which comes as Egypt struggles with a severe economic crisis and high inflation after two years of political upheaval.

Grand Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb, of Egypt's leading Islamic authority Al-Azhar, urged measures to prevent the situation from escalating and to "preserve the national character which characterises the Egyptian people, Muslims and Christians," MENA said.

"The sectarian riots which happened in El Khusus are unacceptable and grave," Saad al-Katatni, the head of the Muslim Brotherhood political party, said on his Facebook website. "There are some who want to set Egypt ablaze and create crises."

President Mohamed Mursi, a Brotherhood leader elected in June, has promised to protect the rights of Copts, who make up about 10 percent of Egypt's 84 million people.

TIGHT SECURITY

On Saturday the situation was calm but tense in the small town where Muslims and Christians live close to each other but in separate streets. Security was tight with police vehicles parked in the main streets.

Police detained 15 people, a security source said.

In a Christian neighborhood dozens of angry young men gathered at noon on Saturday, chanting "with our blood and soul we sacrifice ourselves for the cross". The crowds left after a priest came and asked them to leave to calm tensions.

"There are people who want to cause sectarian strife between Muslims and Christians," said a Christian man who gave his name as Kameel. "I've been here longer than 30 years and I have never seen any violence or extremism in our area."

Sectarian tensions have often flared into violence, particularly in rural areas where rivalries between clans or families sometimes add to friction. Love affairs between Muslims and Christians have also sparked clashed in the past.

Since Mubarak was ousted by a popular uprising, Christians have complained of several attacks on churches by radical Islamists, incidents that have sharpened longstanding Christian complaints about being sidelined in the workplace and in law.

As an example, they point to rules that make it harder to obtain official permission to build a church than a mosque.

Last month, a court sentenced a Muslim to death for killing two people in a dispute with Christians in a southern town.

In October 2011, 25 people, most of them Coptic demonstrators, were killed in clashes with troops in Cairo.

(additional reporting by Omar Fahmy and Yasmine Saleh; Writing by Ulf Laessing; Editing by Alistair Lyon and Stephen Powell)

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Egypt: Clashes outside Copt cathedral leave 1 dead

CAIRO (AP) — Christians angered by the killing of four Christians in weekend sectarian violence clashed Sunday with a mob throwing rocks and firebombs, killing one and turning Cairo's main Coptic cathedral into a battleground.

The clashes raised tempers in an already tense political atmosphere, as workers shut down the country's trains in a strike over wages and a dispute over the nation's chief prosecutor entered a new phase — all signs of two years of unending turmoil.

Reacting to Sunday's violence, the Muslim Brotherhood's political party blamed "dubious" attempts by unnamed parties to broaden instability in Egypt by igniting sectarian violence and spreading chaos.

A liberal opposition group, the Popular Current, said the clashes were symptomatic of the failure of the state to protect its citizens, calling on Islamist President Mohammed Morsi and his government to resign.

Morsi said in a statement late Sunday that he spoke to Pope Tawadros II by phone. He gave orders to authorities to guard the cathedral and citizens in the area, adding that protecting the lives of Muslims and Christians was a state responsibility.

"I consider any attack on the cathedral as an attack on me, personally," he said, according to the statement from his office.

The clashes at the St. Mark Coptic Orthodox Cathedral began just after hundreds of angry Christians left the complex to stage an anti-government march following the funeral for the four Christians killed in sectarian clashes Saturday.

A mob, described by witnesses as residents of the area, pelted them with rocks and firebombs and fired birdshot, forcing them back inside the complex. Few police were present.

By the time police arrived in larger numbers, the church was the scene of clashes between those locked inside and the mob outside, as the two sides exchanged rocks and firebombs. Police fired tear gas, and gas canisters landing inside church grounds caused a panic among women and children. People outside the church cheered.

Tawadros was not in the cathedral, his headquarters, during the funeral and the violence that followed. In a statement carried by the state news agency, said he was "regretful" of the violence and called for calm.

"There was no security outside the church for such a large funeral," said Emad Thabet, a Coptic Christian who was among those locked up in the church for hours. "There is no such thing as Egyptians in Egypt. There are only Muslims and Christians," he said. Copts have complained for decades that the Christian minority suffers from discrimination.

Coptic Christians make up about 10 percent of Egypt's estimated 90 million people. Attacks against Christians have increased since the ouster two years ago of autocrat Hosni Mubarak.

The clashes took place alongside a development in another of Egypt's many crises — questions surrounding the legitimacy of the country's top prosecutor. On Sunday, Egypt's highest judicial body urged him to step down less than five months after Morsi appointed him. A few days earlier, a court ruling declared his appointment void.

The statement from the Supreme Judiciary Council urged the chief prosecutor, Talaat Abdullah, "to express a wish" to return to his previous job as a judge for the sake of the unity of the judiciary.

There was no immediate comment from Abdullah. Officials in his office and in the government indicated before that he will appeal the court decision.

Abdullah's appointment in December set off demonstrations and protests by judges and fellow prosecutors. The protests forced him to tender his resignation, but then he withdrew it and stayed in office.

Removing Abdullah has been a key demand of the mostly liberal and secular opposition. Sunday's call by the council of the judiciary appeared aimed at offering him an honorable exit, a step toward ending the long-running crisis within the judiciary over the appointment.

During the past two weeks, Abdullah has issued summons against several media celebrities critical of Morsi, Egypt's first freely elected president. They included popular TV satirist Bassem Youssef, who was accused of insulting Morsi and Islam. The satirist was released on bail.

Alongside the sectarian and legal issues, the overriding economic crisis flared as Egypt's railway services came to a halt Sunday because of a strike by train drivers and conductors demanding better pay. The strike snarled inter-city transit, and thousands of angry passengers crowded train stations.

The most immediate issue was the specter of sectarian violence increasing and spreading to the rest of the country.

Sunday's clashes grew out of Khossous, a town north of Cairo, where five people, including a Muslim, were killed a day earlier. Renewed clashes erupted there later Sunday outside the local church, leaving 12 residents and one police officer injured.

At the cathedral on Sunday, witness Ibrahim Elsherif said the clashes began when angry Coptic protesters tried to stop traffic for an anti-government march. A street brawl turned quickly into an attack by local residents, who pelted the protesters with rocks from the roofs of nearby buildings, throwing firebombs and firing birdshot, he said. Some protesters smashed parked cars.

One Coptic Christian was killed in the violence, and at least 66 people were wounded, the Health Ministry said. Two local journalists were among those injured, one seriously, according to their newspapers.

Video aired live on the private ONTV network showed young men on the roof of a building next to the cathedral firing handguns toward the compound.

Inside the cathedral, several thousand mourners chanted slogans against Morsi, calling on the Egyptian leader to step down. They shouted "Leave!" and "This is our country, we will not leave."

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Clashes at French anti-gay marriage protest

PARIS (AP) — Paris riot police fought back crowds who pushed their way onto Paris' landmark Champs-Elysees avenue as part of a huge protest against a draft law allowing same-sex couples to marry and adopt children.

Hundreds of thousands of people — conservative activists, children, retirees, priests — converged on the capital Sunday in a last-ditch bid to stop the bill, many bused in from the French provinces.

The lower house of France's parliament approved the "marriage for everyone" bill last month with a large majority, and it's facing a vote in the Senate next month. Both houses are dominated by French President Francois Hollande's Socialist Party and its allies.

Sustained protests led by opposition conservatives in this traditionally Catholic country have eroded support for the draft law in recent months, and organizers hope Sunday's march will weigh on the Senate debate.

The first few hours of the protest were peaceful. But as it was meant to be winding down, about 100 youths tried to push past police barricades onto the Champs-Elysees, the avenue that cuts through central Paris and draws throngs of tourists daily. In an indication of the sensitivity of the issue, protesters had been barred from marching on the Champs.

Police officers wrangled with the youths and then fired tear gas to force them back. Gaining momentum, more and more protesters took side streets to reach the avenue, blocking a key intersection on the route to the president's Elysee Palace.

Police fired more tear gas but were unable to block the crowds from spilling onto the avenue.

"Hollande, Resignation!" the protestors chanted, before breaking into the French anthem, "La Marseillaise."

The demonstrations have become outlets for anger and disappointment in Hollande's presidency.

An official with the Paris police headquarters said two people were arrested and no injuries were reported. The police official was not authorized to be publicly named in accordance with police policy.

The official estimated that 300,000 people took part in Sunday's march, slightly less than a similar march in January. Organizers estimated more than 1.2 million people took part in Sunday's march, more than in the January protest.

Polls indicate a shrinking majority of French voters back gay marriage, which is legal in about a dozen mostly European nations and some U.S. states. But polls show French voters are less enthusiastic about adoption by same-sex couples.

Frigide Barjot, the stage name of an activist who has led protests against the bill, insisted the anti-gay marriage movement wasn't a lost cause. "It's the second round, sir. It's not the last battle."

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Associated Press writer Angela Charlton and photographer Michel Euler in Paris contributed to this report.

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Syrian army clashes with rebels around Aleppo

BEIRUT (AP) — Syrian warplanes carried out airstrikes on rebels trying to storm a police academy outside Aleppo on Wednesday, activists said, while jihadi fighters battled government troops along a key supply road leading to the southeastern part of the city, activists said.

The latest fighting came as the new U.S. secretary of state said Washington is looking for more concrete ways to help the rebels in their fight to oust President Bashar Assad.

Aleppo, Syria's largest city and former commercial capital, became a key front in the country's civil war after rebels launched an offensive there in July 2012. In months of bloody street fighting, opposition fighters have slowly expanded the turf under their control, although the combat has left much of the city in ruins.

The police academy has recently emerged as a new front in the fight for the city, which is considered a major prize in the conflict. Activists say the government has turned the facility into a military base, using it to shell opposition areas in the countryside as well as rebel-held neighborhoods inside the city.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said clashes raged Wednesday around the complex.

"The rebels are still trying to storm the school, but they can't because the regime is carrying out airstrikes and bombarding rebel forces," Observatory director Rami Abdul-Rahman said.

He said at least six rebels were killed Wednesday, bringing the three-day death toll to 37 opposition fighters and more than 50 regime troops.

Another key front in the battle for control of Aleppo is the city's international airport. Rebels have been trying for months to seize the facility, and have made headway in recent weeks, overrunning checkpoints and capturing a military base charged with protecting the airport.

The government is desperate to hold onto the airport, which it has used in the past to fly in supplies to its troops bogged down in the city. However, the fighting has forced the government to close the airport to flights and try to send supplies and reinforcements overland.

Most of those reinforcements, including dozens of vehicles and thousands of troops, are now stuck in the city of Safira, southeast of Aleppo, according to Abdul-Rahman. Fighters from Jabhat al-Nusra, an Islamic extremist rebel group that the U.S. has designated a terrorist organization, have cut the road leading from Safira to the airport, and for weeks have battled troops along the road, preventing them from pushing north to the city to link up with government troops there.

The Observatory reported fierce clashes north of Safira on Wednesday, with both sides shelling each other with mortars and artillery.

The rebels have notched a number of strategic victories in recent weeks that appear to mark a shift in momentum in the nearly 2-year-old conflict, which the U.N. says has killed some 70,000 people. Already in control of much of the countryside in the northeast, the rebels have captured the nation's largest hydroelectric dam, a major oil field and two army bases.

They have also been peppering the center of Damascus with mortar shells as part of their effort to bring the fighting from the capital's rebel-held suburbs into the center of the city. On Wednesday, the Observatory said several mortar shells exploded near the military judiciary and the literature department of Damascus University.

Part of the rebel strategy appears to be to try to shatter the sense of normal life that Assad's regime has desperately tried to maintain in the capital, which has been insulated from much of the violence ravaging the rest of the country.

In Paris, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Washington is looking for more tangible ways to support Syria's rebels and bolster the Western-backed political opposition that would "accelerate the political transition that the Syrian people want and deserve."

So far, the U.S. has largely limited its assistance to funding for communications and other logistical equipment. A decision on whether to vastly increase the size and scope of aid — including pre-packaged meals and medical supplies — is expected by Thursday when Kerry will attend an international conference on Syria in Rome, officials in the U.S. and Europe said.

The Obama administration has not sent military equipment to the rebels, in part out of fears it could fall into the hands of Islamic militants who could use it for terrorist attacks.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the shift in strategy has not yet been finalized and still needs to be coordinated with European nations.

The civil war has forced hundreds of thousands of Syrians to flee their homes and seek shelter elsewhere inside the country or abroad.

Anmar Hmoud, a government spokesman for Syrian refugee affairs, said Wednesday new surge has seen around 3,000 refugees a day escaping across the border into the kingdom as fighting intensifies in southern Syria. The influx has pushed the total number in Jordan to nearly 420,000.

The U.N. says there are nearly 925,000 displaced Syrians scattered throughout the region.

Syria's state news agency said the Interior Ministry on Wednesday extended the validity of passports from six to 10 years, starting from January 2013. Syrians outside the country holding expired passports will be able to renew their documents for two years, SANA said.

The move appeared to meet a demand of Syria's exiled opposition leaders, who have pressed the government to renew passports of the hundreds of thousands of Syrians who have sought refuge abroad and now find their papers no longer valid, potentially trapping them outside the country.

The opposition is certain to monitor whether the order is indeed implemented at the embassy level, or whether it remains on paper only.

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Associated Press writers Dale Gavlak in Amman, Jordan, and Matthew Lee in Paris contributed.

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Fierce clashes near landmark mosque in Syria

BEIRUT (AP) — Syrian rebels battled government troops near a landmark 12th century mosque in the northern city of Aleppo on Tuesday, while fierce clashes raged around a police academy west of the city, activists said.

The fighting near the Umayyad Mosque in the walled Old City threatened to further damage the historic structure, part of which was burned during clashes last year.

Since July 2012, government forces and rebels seeking to topple President Bashar Assad have been battling over Aleppo, the country's largest city and a major prize in the civil war. While rebels have gradually expanded the amount of turf under their control, seven months of street fighting, airstrikes and shelling have left much of the city, considered one of Syria's most beautiful, in ruins.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported intense clashes with heavy gunfire and explosions near the mosque. Syria's state news agency said "terrorists" had detonated explosives near the building's south wall, causing "material damages."

Assad's regime refers to the opposition as "terrorists."

The mosque, also known as the Great Mosque of Aleppo, sits near a medieval covered market in the Old City, which is a UNESCO World Heritage site. The mosque was heavily damaged in October, 2012, just weeks after a fire gutted the market.

Syria's nearly 2-year-old civil war has left its mark on other gems of the country's rich archaeological and cultural heritage.

At least five of Syria's six World Heritage sites have been damaged in the fighting, according to UNESCO, the U.N.'s cultural agency. Looters have broken into one of the world's best-preserved Crusader castles, Crac des Chevaliers, and ruins in the ancient city of Palmyra have been damaged.

Both rebels and regime forces have turned some of Syria's significant historic sites into bases, including citadels and Turkish bath houses, while thieves have stolen artifacts from archaeological excavations and, to a lesser extent, museums.

To the west of Aleppo, activists reported fresh fighting Tuesday near the police academy that has become a key government military installation.

The Observatory said the two sides were shelling each other's positions while the government launched airstrikes in the area.

Video posted online in recent days shows rebel groups firing homemade rockets and mortars at the academy and blasting it with captured tanks. The videos appeared genuine and corresponded with other Associated Press reporting.

The Observatory said the dead in the last two days of fighting in the area included 26 rebel fighters, 40 soldiers and five pro-government militiamen.

The police academy, which activists say the government has turned into a military base, has recently emerged as a new front in the battle for Aleppo. Losing the facility would hinder the regime's ability to shell opposition areas and support its troops inside the city.

An Aleppo activist who goes by the name Abu al-Hassan said via Skype that rebels coming from Idlib province to the west are now trying to clear the army from residential areas near the academy before they attack it.

"Yesterday and today they have been trying to go forward but there are lots of shelling and airstrikes," he said.

The fighting has largely destroyed Aleppo and caused humanitarian conditions for the city's remaining civilians to plummet.

On Tuesday, Human Rights Watch said more than 141 people, including 71 children, had been killed in at least four missile strikes by the Syrian government in and near the city of Aleppo last week. The New York-based group said the strikes hit residential areas and called them an "escalation of unlawful attacks against Syria's civilian population."

A Human Rights Watch researcher who visited the sites said up to 20 buildings were destroyed in each area hit by a missile. There were no signs of any military targets in the residential districts, located in rebel-held parts of Aleppo and its northern countryside, said Ole Solvang, the researcher.

"The extent of the damage from a single strike, the lack of (military) aircraft in the area at the time, and reports of ballistic missiles being launched from a military base near Damascus overwhelmingly suggest that government forces struck these areas with ballistic missiles," HRW said in its report.

It added that the Aleppo neighborhoods hit were Jabal Badro, Tariq al-Bab and Ard al-Hamra. The fourth strike documented by the group was in Tel Rifat, north of the city.

UNICEF said in a statement that it is "appalled" by the deaths of children, and called on all parties in the conflict to "ensure that civilians — and children especially — are protected, at all times."

Syria has never acknowledged the strikes, and portrays the conflict as a foreign conspiracy carried out by "terrorists" to weaken the country.

The missile attacks have outraged the leaders of Syria's exiled opposition who have accused their Western backers of indifference to the suffering of civilians caught up in the conflict.

Also Tuesday, the Observatory said the death toll in a car bomb attack in Damascus had risen to eight. All were regime security officers, it said.

The blast late Monday struck a security checkpoint in the neighborhood of Qaboun, less than a kilometer (mile) from Abbasid Square, northeast of downtown. It was followed by several other smaller blasts thought to be mortar shells landing in various districts of the capital.

The explosions and subsequent gunfire caused panic among residents who hid in their apartments.

Syria's state news agency said the blast was caused by a suicide car bomber and caused an unspecified number of casualties.

The U.N. says some 70,000 have been killed since Syria's conflict began in March 2011.

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Associated Press writer Ryan Lucas contributed to this report.

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