Rebels blow up historic Aleppo hotel in Syria
Source: AP-EXCITE
By BARBARA SURK
BEIRUT (AP) A rebel-claimed bombing Thursday in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo leveled a once luxurious hotel near the ancient Citadel that government troops used as a military base, causing multiple casualties, activists and militants said.
Syrian state television said the explosion struck the Carlton Hotel in a government-held area on the edge of a contested neighborhood in the old part of Aleppo.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which maintains a network of activists on the ground, said at least 14 soldiers were killed in the blast. The Islamic Front, Syria's biggest rebel alliance which claimed the attack, claimed to have killed 50 soldiers. Both groups did not say how they know how many soldiers died, and the claims could not be independently verified.
In a live broadcast from the site of blast, the station's correspondent in Aleppo stood on a huge pile of rubble with twisted metal and palm trees sticking out, saying that the army had been using the building as a base and soldiers were positioned there at the time of the explosion. In the broadcast, Syrian TV did not mention casualties but said the rebels blew up the building by tunneling underneath and planting explosives.
FULL story at link.
Read more: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20140508/syria-e83d245a89.html
This image made from amateur video posted by Shaam News Network (SNN), an anti-Bashar Assad activist group, which has been verified and is consistent with other AP reporting, shows an explosion that destroyed the Carlton Hotel in Aleppo, Syria, Thursday, May 8, 2014. The rebel-claimed bombing Thursday in the northern Syrian city leveled the once luxurious hotel near the ancient Citadel that government troops used as a military base, causing multiple casualties, activists and militants said.(AP Photo/Shaam News Network via AP video)
seveneyes
(4,631 posts)It's time we stopped funding the rebel terrorists.
pampango
(24,692 posts)planes and helicopters?
951-Riverside
(7,234 posts)And no, the Al Qaeda linked rebels from Iraq and Saudi Arabia are not civilians.
pampango
(24,692 posts)Are you saying that those jets do not bomb civilian neighborhoods? That they are using 'smart bombs' that only kill terrorists? Or are civilian deaths ('collateral damage') acceptable as long as as they are 'accidental' (who would have thought that bombing urban neighborhoods would kill civilians).
And how about those "barrel bombs" being dropped from helicopters? No civilian casualties from those either? Are they "smart" barrel bombs?
Xithras
(16,191 posts)Assad's men have successfully built effective security perimeters around their bases, in response to a number of their bases being overrun last year. The tunnel bombs seem to be a new tactic for the rebels to get around these perimeters.
Some of these blasts have been absolutely massive. Here's one that buried an entire neighborhood: http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=f48_1399313710