The
international airport in Syria’s second city of Aleppo was temporarily closed
due to repeated attacks by rebel fighters, said an official on Tuesday.
The closure of the aviation hub came as regime warplanes
bombarded the outskirts of the capital and the rebels fought off an army
offensive on a string of towns along the Damascus airport road.
“An official said it would be closed for a “very short period of
time” while the army sought to regain control of surrounding areas where many
rebels had set up base.
The authorities said, however, that the airport was closed for
maintenance work to the runway and other facilities.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the runway closure
came after a blast hit a civilian plane as it took off on Saturday, likely due
to rebel shelling.
Fighting in Aleppo has been at a stalemate for months since July
when opposition fighters launched a massive assault on the city, Syria’s most
populated and onetime commercial capital.
The assault opened a new front in the conflict that has killed
more than 46,000 people erupting in March 2011, according to the Observatory,
which relies on a network of activists and medics for its information.
On Tuesday, warplanes raided the embattled north-eastern suburbs
of Damascus and the towns of Daraya and Moadamiyet al-Sham to the southwest as
troops clashed with the rebel Free Syrian Army. — AFP
No comments:
Post a Comment