Opposition: Syrian forces renew attacks

On Syria’s digital battlefield, hackers loyal to Syrian PresidentBashar al-Assad are defeating the rebels' cyber militias.

BEIRUT — A U.S.-based rights group on Thursday accused Syria of committing war crimes by indiscriminate and sometimes deliberate airstrikes against civilians, killing at least 4,300 people since last summer. Human Rights Watch said Syrian fighter jets have targeted bakeries, bread lines and hospitals in the country’s north.

BEIRUT – Syrian warplanes bombed rebel areas near Damascus on Thursday as President Bashar Assad’s troops battled opposition fighters for control of the road linking the capital to the country’s largest airport. Assad’s forces are trying drive out rebels who have established enclaves in the suburbs. While the government has lost control of large swaths of territory in the country’s north and east, including parts of the northern city of Aleppo, the capital remains tightly secured.

With gas stations shuttered, people buy their fuel from smugglers who charge five times what they used to. Schools now shelter fighters, rather than teaching children reading and writing. Two years into Syria’s revolution, the government has collapsed and with it the ability to provide basic services. In rebel-controlled areas, the opposition has struggled to replace a central government that controlled everything from crop prices to college admissions.

Syrian President Bashar-al Assad gave a hard line interview with Argentina’s Clarín newspaper, dismissing international peace efforts and blaming the West for supporting “terrorists” fighting his government.

BEIRUT — Syrian activists are reporting heavy government shelling and air raids in Damascus and its suburbs. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says government troops have shelled the northern neighborhoods of Jobar, Barzeh and Qaboun of the capital. It also reported an air raid Tuesday on the Damascus suburb of Mleiha. Maath al-Shami, an activist based in the suburb of eastern Ghouta, says there were several airstrikes in the area.

Warnings from Syrian activists in Homs grew more desperate as government forces resumed shelling an opposition stronghold in the restive central city, where hundreds have died in a weeks-long siege.