Syrian rebels raid Aleppo prison

Suicide bombing paves way for insurgents; hundreds freed

BEIRUT - A suicide bomber blew himself up at the gates of a Syrian prison Thursday and rebels stormed in behind him, freeing hundreds of inmates as part of an offensive aimed at capturing key government symbols around the northern city of Aleppo.

Government forces, meanwhile, dropped crude “barrel bombs” in deadly airstrikes as both sides escalated their fight for the strategic city ahead of a second round of peace talks set for next week. Opposition leaders threatened to suspend the talks over the barrel bombings.

In the past six days alone, the makeshift weapons - containers packed with explosives, fuel and scrap metal - have killed more than 250 people in Aleppo, including 73 children, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

They include at least 11 who died Thursday - six of them from the same family - in the opposition-held neighborhood of Masaken Hanano.

In other developments, the Syrian government said it has reached an agreement with the United Nations to let hundreds of trapped civilians leave besieged parts of the city of Homs and to permit U.N. humanitarian relief convoys to enter.

U.S. State Department spokesman Jen Psaki welcomed the agreement, which is expected to be carried out today, but warned: “We should not be giving credit to a regime just for providing food for a few days to people who are starving, given that’s the right moral thing to do. This is something they should have been doing all along.”

The rebels in Aleppo declared a push to seize the city’s central prison and the Kweiras military air base to the east. Opposition fighters have been trying to capture the installations for months.

Thursday’s offensive began when a Chechen suicide bomber from the al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front attacked the prison gates, according to the Observatory. Rebel fighters then gained control of large parts of the compound. By evening, heavy clashes between the rebels and soldiers were raging inside.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and other activists said the rebels freed several hundred prisoners.

State-run Syrian television said the army foiled an attempt by “terrorist groups” to attack the prison.

Rebels have been besieging the prison, estimated to have 4,000 inmates, for almost a year. They have rammed suicide car bombs into the front gates twice, lobbed shells into the compound and battled frequently with the hundreds of guards and troops holed up inside.

The nearly 3-year-old uprising against President Bashar Assad has left more than 130,000 people dead and forced more than 2.3 million to seek refuge abroad.

The Syrian government has not said whether it plans to take part in the proposed new round of U.N.-hosted peace negotiations in Geneva, although its chief ally, Russia, expressed confidence earlier this week that the government would indeed return.

Michel Kilo, a senior opposition figure and member of the negotiating team, said he and other figures were discussing suspending the peace talks until the government halts its “hysterical” use of barrel bombs.

“The Syrian regime is not interested in a political solution. … They see the talks as an opportunity to advance on the ground,” he said.

Meanwhile Thursday, the U.N. Security Council called on Syria to speed up the removal of its most harmful chemical-weapon agents from the country after it missed several deadlines.

The Syrian government missed a Dec. 31 deadline to remove the most dangerous chemicals in its stockpile from the war-torn country and Wednesday’s deadline to give up its entire stockpile of chemical weapons. The Assad regime has cited security concerns and the lack of some equipment but said it remains fully committed to the process.

A council statement issued Thursday after a briefing by Sigrid Kaag, head of the mission responsible for destroying Syria’s chemical weapons, called on Syria “to expedite actions to meet its obligation to transport in a systematic and sufficiently accelerated manner all relevant chemicals” to the port of Latakia for removal.

The council noted that Secretary-General Ban Kimoon and the joint U.N.-Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons mission overseeing the destruction of Syria’s stockpile have said the government “has sufficient material and equipment to carry out multiple ground movements to ensure the expeditious removal of chemical weapons.”

U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power demanded that Assad’s government establish a plan to quickly move the chemical weapons and their precursors out of the country.

By delaying, she said, the Assad regime is increasing the cost to nations involved in the removal and is “also encouraging heightened risks that these weapons will be used again by regime elements or will fall into the hands of terrorists.”

But Kaag said she didn’t think there had been deliberate stalling by Syria. She said there is ongoing destruction of less-harmful chemicals taking place in Syria and continuing preparations for the removal of more-harmful agents.

Information for this article was contributed by Ryan Lucas, Barbara Surk and Edith M. Lederer of The Associated Press.

Front Section, Pages 6 on 02/07/2014

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