Syrian airstrikes kill at least 12 rebels

AMMAN, Jordan (AP) — Syrian government forces and aircraft attacked rebel strongholds across the country on Sunday, killing more than a dozen people, activists said.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said regime airstrikes targeted rebel-held areas in the predominantly Kurdish village of Hadad in the northeastern province of Hassaka.

An activist in the area who spoke by phone said rebels counted 12 dead, all civilians, but were not sure of the breakdown between men and women. There was no way to independently verify the death toll.

“There are plumes of black smoke rising over the town, with continuous army fire from ground and air attacks,” said the activist. He asked to be identified by his nom de guerre Abu Qasem for security reasons.

The state SANA news agency said three journalists working for state TV in the northern province of Aleppo were wounded in a car bomb attack.

Correspondent Shadi Helweh and the two cameramen, Yehia Mosseli and Ahmed Suleiman, were hospitalized with moderate wounds caused by shrapnel, the agency said. It said the three were covering the Syrian army’s “foiling” of two suicide attackers who were trying to detonate a car bomb near one of the security headquarters in the province.

SANA said the two attackers were killed, while several other civilians were also wounded.

The Observatory said a rebel and a civilian were killed in airstrikes and fighting in the suburbs of Damascus

It also said that four civilians died under torture in a jail in the town of Zakyeh, without providing further details.

The observatory said the army shot one man dead in the southern city of Daraa.

Meanwhile, state TV said military forces conducted operations around Damascus and in the provinces of Hassaka, Daraa, and Idlib and Aleppo.

SANA said the army seized a truck carrying rocket launchers on a highway linking Damascus with the central province of Homs.

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.