Syrian government airstrike kills 5 in Aleppo

PanARMENIAN.Net - A Syrian government airstrike on a heavily contested neighborhood in the northern city of Aleppo killed at least five people Saturday, April 6, while several mortar rounds slammed into a residential district in Damascus, leaving at least one person dead, activists and state media said, according to The Associated Press.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the air raid Saturday hit Aleppo’s Sheikh Maqsoud neighborhood, which rebels seized parts of last weekend after days of heavy fighting with regime troops.

In Damascus, mortar rounds hit the residential district of Kafar Souseh on the city’s western outskirts, killing one person and wounding at least 13, the state-run SANA news agency said. The attacks also caused material damage to stores in the district and set several parked vehicles on fire, SANA said.

The Observatory said mortar rounds also struck the Damascus suburb of Jaramana. There were no immediate reports of casualties.

The Observatory also reported clashes between government troops and rebels Saturday in the town of Otaybah east of Damascus.

Also Saturday, the newly elected prime minister of the Western-backed opposition umbrella group, Ghassan Hitto, started reviewing candidates for a planned rebel interim government that will consist of 11 ministries and will be based inside Syria, according to a statement by the Syrian National Coalition.

It said Hitto, who has lived in the United States for many years, aims to “attract the qualified talent and competencies required to manage the upcoming phase of the revolution.”

The candidates for ministerial and deputy positions must be Syrian citizens older than 35 years of age, the statement said. It added that high-ranking regime officials or “those who have committed crimes against the Syrian people or have unlawfully seized Syrian property or wealth” will be excluded from consideration.

“The nominee must be an advocate or supporter of the Syrian revolution,” the statement said.