Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: Fighting Continues in Aleppo

A reporter for Press TV, escorted by Syrian military, declares that Salah Ed Dine is Aleppo is free of "terrorists" --- In his previous broadcast from Aleppo on 30 July, the reporter said, "All is normal"

See also Syria Opinion: "Nobody Is Above Criticism"
Iran and Syria Audio Feature: Why Tehran's Conference "Stunt" Means Little --- Scott Lucas with Monocle 24
Friday's Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: The Battle for Aleppo Continues

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2025 GMT: Syria. The Local Coordination Committees reports that 80 people have been killed by security forces today, including 19 in Damascus and its suburbs and 15 in Aleppo Province.

1915 GMT: Syria. A Lebanese judge has charged former Minister of Information Michel Samaha and two Syrian army officers with setting up an armed group to incite sectarian strife through “terror attacks”, including bombings and assassinations.

One of the Syrian officers as General Ali Mamluk, the Syrian National Security chief.

The indictment also said that Samaha and the Syrian army officers set up the armed group to commit crimes, fueling sectarianism “by targeting the authority of the state and its civil and military institutions.” It alleged that the group conspired “with the intelligence services of a foreign country to undertake attacks against Lebanon".

Samaha was arrested on Thursday, initially in a case linked to explosives.

1700 GMT: Syria. The Local Coordination Committees claim that 51 people have died at the hands of security forces today, including 15 in Aleppo Province.

1620 GMT: Syria. Claimed footage of insurgents seeking out regime forces, whom they suspect of hiding in a gas station, in Aleppo:

1450 GMT: Syria. A first-hand account by Jonathan Steele of The Guardian offers a view of the rising toll among Syria's security forces from insurgent attacks:

Like the other military policemen in the minibus, Mohammad Asaad was wearing civilian clothes as he set off for work in the north of the province of Damascus. "No one would take the risk of wearing uniform," he told me as he lay in his bloodstained T-shirt in Tishreen military hospital, Syria's main centre for wounded security force personnel and their families.

At An Nabk, a small town about 35 miles from the capital, the crowded minibus came across an unexpected obstacle on Thursday morning. "We were surprised to see insurgents blocking the road. Without warning they started shooting," he recalled as doctors dressed his injured arm.

"They used every kind of weapon. Our minibus tipped over, and several people died," he said. "The passengers included civilians and one of the dead was a mother. The insurgents ran off and we managed to call for help to bring us here."

In a nearby ward another policeman who survived the incident was about to be X-rayed. Doctors said the attack had produced six "martyrs", the standard term used by all sides in Syria's civil war for military and civilian dead. Five others needed surgery.

1326 GMT: Syria. Russia Today's Oksana Boyko reports clashes and shelling in central Damascus near the Malki area and the Four Seasons Hotel, where United Nations monitors are staying.

Fighting has been reported in at least five districts of the capital.

State TV said a bomb exploded in Marjeh Square.

1237 GMT: Syria. Claimed footage apparently from last night, of a civilian firing on protesters in Dar Kulaib:

1227 GMT: Syria. Gerhard Schindler, head of Germany's BND intelligence agency, has said, "There are a lot of indications that the end game for the [Assad] regime has begun....[Army losses] includes those who have been wounded, deserted and about 2,000 to 3,000 who have defected to the armed military opposition. The erosion of the military is continuing."

Schindler said insurgents were offsetting the advantage of regime firepower with speed and maneuverability to strike in ambushes: "Because of their small size, they're not a good target for Assad's army. The regular army is being confronted by a variety of flexible fighters. The recipe of their success is their guerrilla tactics. They're breaking the army's back."

An EA correspondent adds, "The German spy chief is usually invisible in media, so this statement is very significant."

1144 GMT: Syria. Speaking after meetings with Turkish officials and the Free Syrian Army, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said that talks focused on supporting the opposition, with "a single operational plan" inside Syria for a transition without President Assad, responding to humanitarian conditions in Syria and in neighbouring countries, and providing non-lethal and direct financial aid to insurgents.

Clinton said the US had given $25 million of assistance, mainly communications equipment, to the insurgency and announced that the US and Turkey had set up a group to coordinate the approaches of their armies and intelligence services.

1128 GMT: Syria. Insurgents are regrouping at the headquarters of the Seyoof al-Shahbaa Brigade and preparing to move back into the Salah Ed Dine section of Aleppo, according to Reuters.

The brigade commander said, "The reason we retreated from Salah Ed Dine this week is due to a lack of weapons." He said 10 of his 30 fighters had been wounded by sniper fire.

1123 GMT: Syria. Syrian and Jordanian forces clashed overnight after Syrian troops fired on refugees trying to cross the border, according to an opposition activist and Jordanian wtiness.

Armoured vehicles were involved in the clash in the Tel Shihab-Turra area, about 80 kilometres (50 miles) north of the Jordanian capital Amman.

1110 GMT: Syria. The moment of explosion when a shell struck the Khalidiya section of Homs on Friday --- activists claim at least six people were killed in the area:

1032 GMT: Syria. The pro-regime TV station Al-Ikhbariya has said that gunmen abducted three of their journalists and their driver in a suburb of Damascus.

Imad Sarah, the general manager of the station, says that the four were seized Friday in al-Tal suburb. The station blamed "terrorists" and said efforts were under way to release the four men.

1032 GMT: Syria. The pro-regime TV station Al-Ikhbariya has said that gunmen abducted three of their journalists and their driver in a suburb of Damascus.

Imad Sarah, the general manager of the station, says that the four were seized Friday in al-Tal suburb. The station blamed "terrorists" and said efforts were under way to release the four men.

0925 GMT: Israel and Egypt. Israel has been sending soldiers into Egypt’s Sinai desert to stop African migrants before they reach the border, handing them over to Egyptian forces, human rights groups have claimed.

The report, released Friday by Amnesty International and several Israeli groups, including Hotline for Migrant Workers and the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, said that Israeli soldiers have entered several hundred metres into Egyptian territory to catch migrants and hand them over to Egyptian police.

The report cited an Israeli soldier and several migrants whose relatives were seized.

Israel has been increasingly concerned over the numbers of African migrants --- most from Sudan, South Sudan, and Eritrea --- moving across the border. About 60,000 are already in Israel.

A senior Egyptian military official in Sinai denied that any Israeli soldiers entered the country. The Israeli military spokesman’s office did not confirm or deny the report.

0917 GMT: Yemen. Hundreds of Republican Guard forces loyal to former President Ali Abdullah Saleh encircled the Ministry of Defense in Sanaa for several hours early Saturday, protesting a move to strip the ex-President's son of part of his military command.

The officers and soldiers of the country's best-trained force, which has been led by Saleh's son Ahmed, rallied at the Ministry late Friday. Officials said that military officers had informed them that they would try to storm the ministry, prompting authorities to deploy tanks and armoured vehicles, while Government forces threatened to open fire if the protesters did not leave. The demonstration ended several hours later.

0733 GMT: Libya. Gunmen killed an army general in Benghazi on Friday.

Mohammed Hadiya Al-Feitouri was leaving a mosque after Friday prayers when he was hit by gunfire from a car.

Feitouri defected from the Qaddafi regime during last year's revolt and later became head of ammunition and armament for the army.

0641 GMT: Egypt. Nine men have been detained over last weekend's attack in northern Sinai that killed 16 Egyptian border guards, according to a security official.

Egyptian forces retaliated for the attack with airstrikes that killed 20 people.

0633 GMT: Bahrain. Nineteen members of the US Congress have written King Hamad, asking him to release Nabeel Rajab, the head of the Bahrain Center of Human Rights, and other political prisoners.

The verdict in the appeal of Rajab, sentenced to three months in prison for Twitter messages that allegedly insulted the Prime Minister, is due Sunday.

0625 GMT: Bahrain. Footage of a police raid in A'ali on Friday night:

0515 GMT: Syria. State news agency SANA proclaims this morning, "Armed Forces Continue Cleaning Aleppo Neighborhoods from Terrorists", but the headline inadvertently testifies --- 36 hours after the regime declared that it had seized the Salah Ed Dine section, where the insurgents first arose in Syria's largest city three weeks ago --- that the fighting is continuing.

The Free Syrian Army even launched an attack on Aleppo's airport on Friday, although SANA said that this had been repelled by Syrian forces. Meanwhile, about 12 people, including three children, were killed when a shell hit a bakery in Tariq al-Bab in eastern Aleppo, and the opposition claimed the historic Citadel had been seriously damaged.

The Local Coordination Committees said the toll of people killed by security forces or whose bodies were found on Friday was 180, of which 75 were in Aleppo. The regime does not announce casualty figures for its forces.