DAMASCUS, Syria, July 20, (Agencies): Syrian troops and tanks on Friday drove rebels from a Damascus neighborhood where some of the heaviest of this week’s fighting in the capital left cars gutted and fighters’ bodies in the streets. More than 300 people were killed in a single day, activists said, as the military struggles to regain momentum after a stunning bombing against the regime’s leadership.
A fourth member of President Bashar Assad’s inner circle, national security chief Gen. Hisham Ikhtiyar, died of wounds he suffered in Wednesday’s bomb blast, which went off during a high level security meeting in Damascus, the government announced.
The bombing has been a resounding blow to Assad, killing his defense minister and his influential brother-in-law along with another security official, all central to directing the crackdown on the uprising against his rule.

Unraveling
The blast, six days of sustained fighting in neighborhoods across the heart of the capital and the fall of several border posts into rebel hands have pointed to the unraveling of Assad’s grip on power amid an uprising that began in March 2011 with peaceful protests inspired by the Arab Spring but became increasingly militarized as the opposition took up arms.
Regime troops regained control of the district of Midan in the southern part of Damascus on Friday and eagerly took journalists on a tour to prove it. But rebels launched new fighting in several other districts of the capital, activists said.
The fighting came as Muslims around much of the world began marking Islam’s annual Ramadan fast, abstaining from food or drink from sunrise to sunset. In a sign of the increasing sectarian split in Syria, the mainly Sunni opposition said it was starting the fast on Friday, along with Saudi Arabia and most Sunni-led Arab nations. The regime, meanwhile, said it would begin Saturday, as is its ally, Shiite-led Iran.
Battles involving troops bringing in tanks, helicopters and mortars have turned parts of Damascus into combat zones and sent thousands of Syrian families packed in cars streaming across the border into neighboring Lebanon.

Cleansed
“Our heroic forces have completely cleansed the Midan area of the terrorist mercenaries,” state TV announced, employing the term used by authorities to refer to rebels. It said authorities seized large quantities of weapons including machine guns, explosive belts, rocket-propelled grenades and communications equipment.
Damascus activist Khaled al-Shami, contacted via Skype, said rebels carried out a “tactical” retreat early Friday to spare civilians further shelling after five days of intense clashes between opposition fighters and regime forces.
But in an indication of the volatile security situation, the government took local journalists for the trip to Midan inside two armored personal carriers Friday.
An Associated Press reporter on the trip saw scenes of destruction, including dozens of damaged or charred cars, stores with shattered windows. “The Mosque of the Free,” read graffiti scrawled on the outer wall of the local Saeed Bin Zeid Mosque, apparently by opposition supporters who held sway in the neighborhood for days.
The corpses of at least six young men lay on the street. One of them, near the mosque, appeared to have been shot in the chest. Others were bearded and dressed in black with axes next to them. Garbage littered the streets, shops were closed and the streets were almost deserted.
But rebels continued to strike elsewhere in the capital Friday. Rebels attacked a police station on Khaled bin Waleed Street, where heavy fighting was going on, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. Clashes were also reported in the northern Barzeh and Rukneddine districts.
Details on the fighting were not immediately available.
A Syria-based activist who goes by the name of Bashir al-Dimashqi said the rebels in Damascus were staging hit and run attacks and striking at security targets as opposed to controlling areas.
“Their strategy is to paralyze public institutions and chip away at the regime,” he said.
Activists reported that 310 people were killed in violence nationwide Thursday, making it the single deadliest day of fighting since the revolt began.
The toll included 93 government troops, the Syrian Observatory said. Another activist group, the Local Coordination Committees said 217 civilians were killed Thursday.
The figures could not be independently verified because of severe restrictions on journalists in Syria.
Also Friday, the United Nations Security Council voted to extend the mission of some 300 unarmed observers in Syria for 30 days.
The team was meant to oversee a cease-fire that was supposed to begin in mid-April but never took hold. In recent weeks, violence has kept the observers largely confined to their hotels.
The vote extends the mission, which was set to expire Friday, for 30 days, though it can be extended if Syrian troops stop using heavy weapons in populated areas and the overall level of violence drops.
On Thursday, Russia and China vetoed a resolution backed by Western nations that would have imposed new sanctions on Assad’s regime.
Besides the fighting in Damascus Friday, about a half-dozen rebels took over a Syrian border crossing near the Iraqi town of Qaim on Thursday, said Iraqi army Brig. General Qassim al-Dulaimi. There are four major border posts with Iraq.
Rebels overtook a Syrian army outpost near the Syrian-Iraq border after clashes that killed 21 Syrian soldiers, he added.
In addition, amateur video posted online showed rebels taking over the Bab al-Hawa border crossing with Turkey, where they stomped on portraits of Assad. The Associated Press could not independently verify the video because the government bars most media from working independently in the country.
A Turkish official based in Reyhanli, on the Turkish side of the border gate of Bab al-Hawa, confirmed that the rebels had taken control of the frontier crossing, but had no information on the latest situation over on the Syrian side.
Another official said Turkey has temporarily closed the border gate “for security reasons.” Both spoke on condition of anonymity in line with government rules that bar civil servants from speaking to journalists without authorization.
The Damascus fighting and Wednesday’s bomb blast have shown increased capabilities by Syria’s rebels, made up of military defectors and protesters who took up arms. They have managed to launch operations in the capital before, but never carried out such sustained fighting.
In the bombing, they succeeded in slipping an explosive into an inner sanctum of the regime.
The funerals of the first three victims of the blast - Defense Minister Dawoud Rajha, Deputy Defense Minister Gen. Assef Shawkat and Hassan Turkmani, a former defense minister - were held Friday in Syria amid “official presence,” state TV reported.
The state news agency said Vice-President Farouq al-Sharaa and Gen. Fahd al-Freij, the new defense minister, laid wreaths on the men’s coffins.
Assad did not attend and has only appeared in a brief, soundless video clip aired on state TV since the bomb attack.
Shawkat was the husband of Assad’s sister and a major adviser. Rajha was the highest-ranking Christian in Assad’s leadership, which is dominated by members of his own Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiism.
Syria’s Al-Dunia TV later showed brief images of Rajha’s funeral at a church in Damascus. It showed the coffin, wrapped in a red, white and black Syrian flag surrounded by clapping crowds as women dressed in black cried in mourning.
Following Wednesday’s dramatic events, some believe the al-Assad regime may not live through Ramadan to celebrate Eid at the end of the month.
Al-Assad has not appeared in public since this attack, nor have any of his senior officials.
Even if he does appear and issue a statement, his followers all believe that he is completely responsible for the successive failures that have struck the regime.

Envoy
Russia’s envoy to Paris said Friday he believed Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad was ready to go “in a civilised manner” but later insisted Moscow’s position had not changed.
Syrian state television dismissed the remarks as “totally baseless”.
In an interview with Radio France International (RFI), Ambassador Alexander Orlov said Assad had accepted a transition plan agreed by world powers in Geneva and named a representative for talks with the opposition.
“That is to say, he is accepting to go — but to go in a civilised manner,” he said.
Asked if Assad’s departure was only a matter of time, Orlov said: “Personally I share your opinion. I believe it will be difficult for him to stay after everything that has happened.”
But Orlov later told France’s BFMTV that Assad’s acceptance of the plan “means that maybe within himself he is ready to go if this would be the result of these negotiations.
“Saying now that the Russian ambassador said that the Syrian president was ready to go is completely false,” he said.
“Moreover, this is the fundamental difference in the Security Council between us and our Western partners, who are precisely requiring that President Assad leave before negotiations begin.”
A spokesman for the Russian embassy in Paris, Sergei Barinov, told the Interfax news agency that Orlov’s comments had been “taken out of context”.
“This was not the expression of a position nor of information,” he said.
“There are already interpretations according to which the ambassador has exclusive information that Assad is ready to resign. There is no such thing.”
The embassy also released a statement saying the ambassador “never said and could never say” that Assad accepted leaving his post.
“The right to decide on the fate of the president of Syria belongs only to (Assad) himself and the Syrian people,” it said.
“Russia remains firm in its position, believing that the end of the violence and the launching of an inclusive national dialogue cannot and should not be based on any pre-condition,” the statement said.
In Damascus, Syrian state television said Orlov’s comments had been distorted.
“The comments attributed to the Russian ambassador to Paris on the fact that President Assad would agree to relinquish power in a civilised manner are totally baseless,” the broadcaster said.
“(The comments) were distorted and the Russian ambassador did not at all say what was attributed to him,” state television said, criticising the “bloodthirsty media.”

Concerned
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said Friday that he was deeply concerned and frustrated over developments in Syria.
“We are grappling with the deeply disturbing developments (in Syria) ... I’ve been saying that I am deeply concerned, I am deeply frustrated,” he said in a speech at Zagreb city hall.
Ban also said he was “deeply disappointed” over the Security Council’s failure Thursday to agree on a resolution on Syria. Russia and China on Thursday vetoed a resolution on Syria for the third time, sparking outrage by the Western nations which demanded sanctions against President Bashar al-Assad.
“I again urge the international community and particularly members of the Security Council, (that) they should be united, for humanity, to deliver a strong message and use whatever available tools under the charter of the United Nations,” Ban said.
Ban was in Croatia for the second leg of a Balkan tour that is to include the first visit by a UN chief to the site of the 1995 massacre in Bosnia’s UN-protected enclave of Srebrenica and to Kosovo since it declared independence in 2008.
Ban spoke in Zagreb of his upcoming visit to Srebrenica saying he was hoping to learn lessons there that would prevent future tragedies.
“The United Nations and the international community as a whole failed to deliver what people needed to have at that time, in time of need (in Srebrenica),” he said, condemning the “brutal genocide” there.
Nearly 8,000 Muslim men and boys were killed in Srebrenica after Bosnian Serb troops brushed aside lightly-armed Dutch peacekeepers and overran the UN-protected enclave on July 11, 1995.
“There are such cases when the national government leaders are not able to protect their own citizens from all this genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and ethnic cleansing, which we have seen,” Ban said recalling Srebrenica but also the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.
“There are certain cases when leaders themselves are not willing to protect their citizens from these crimes,” he added.
“Then the international community should be able to take necessary collective action.... We have seen this principle applied effectively in the case of Ivory Coast in the case of Libya. Sadly, we have not been able to see that being applied in Syria,” Ban said.

Refugees
Iraq’s government said on Friday it was unable to provide help for Syrian refugees looking to escape their country’s ongoing strife because of the poor security situation within Iraq.
“Our borders are desert areas, and we can not provide aid for refugees and because of the security situation,” government spokesman Ali Dabbagh said in an interview on Iraqiya state TV, to explain why Iraq would not be able to support Syrian refugees.
“We are sorry for not receiving Syrian refugees. We are not like Jordan and Turkey — their borders are regions that can provide services. We had hoped to help our Syrian refugee brothers.”
Tens of thousands of Syrians have fled their country in recent days after violence mounted, in particular in the capital Damascus.
Up to 30,000 Syrians have fled into Lebanon over the past two days, according to the UN refugee agency, and more than 43,000 Syrians have sought refuge in Turkey or camps set up near the frontier since March 2011.
And authorities say nearly 140,000 Syrians have taken refuge in Jordan.
Dabbagh said some 1,000 Iraqis had returned to the country by plane from Syria, and a further 1,500 were waiting at Damascus airport, adding that moving Iraqis by land in Syria was “not safe.”
Dabbagh estimated on Thursday that some 100,000 to 200,000 Iraqis still remained inside Syria.
Spied
A Virginia man has been sentenced to 18 months in prison after admitting he spied on US-based Syrian dissidents while working with the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Mohamad Soueid, 47, of Leesburg pleaded guilty earlier this year to acting as an unregistered foreign agent of the Syrian government. But his guilty plea had been under seal until Friday, when he was sentenced in federal court in Alexandria.
Court papers show Soueid admitted sending video and audio recordings of Syrian dissidents to members of the Syrian intelligence agency, the Mukhabarat. He also personally discussed dissident activity in the US with Assad in a private meeting in Syria last year.
Soueid’s attorney, federal public defender Michael Nachmanoff, said the sentence was a fair one. The 18-month sentence was much shorter than the six-year term sought by the government. The defense had argued for a one-year sentence.
“Mr. Soueid was motivated by a fear of Islamic extremism, and that is a real threat” as various groups battle for control in what is increasingly viewed as a civil war against Assad’s secular regime. “This is a guy who believed, and still believes, that having Islamic extremists taking over is bad for Syria and bad for the US”
In court papers arguing for a lighter sentence, Nachmanoff wrote: “Like many other Americans, he has hoped that political uprisings in Libya, Egypt, and elsewhere would lead to stable democracies. Unlike other Americans, however, he knows from his own life experience that political unrest in the Middle East could open the door for Islamic fundamentalists.”
US Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia Neil MacBride, whose office prosecuted the case, said that Soueid’s actions bolstered a regime that is murdering its own people.
“Mr. Soueid betrayed this country to work on behalf of a state sponsor of terror,” MacBride said. “While the autocratic Syrian regime killed, kidnapped, intimidated and silenced thousands of its own citizens, Mr. Soueid spearheaded efforts to identify and intimidate those protesting against the Syrian government in the United States.”
The Justice Department announced Soueid’s arrest and charges last year in a press release, and public hearings were held on whether Soueid should be detained pending trial. A magistrate initially ruled that Soueid was at most a minor figure and ordered bond, though a district court judge later overruled him and ordered Soueid remain jailed.
Despite the public nature of the proceedings, the entire case was placed under seal retroactively for a number of months “in order to protect compelling national security interests,” prosecutors said in a court motion.

Intervention
Israel is preparing for a possible military intervention in Syria in case the Syrian government hands missiles or chemical weapons to the Lebanese Islamist movement Hezbollah, Defence Minister Ehud Barak said on Friday.
“I have instructed the military to increase its intelligence preparations and prepare what is needed so that ... (if necessary) ... we will be able to consider carrying out an operation,” Barak said in an interview on Channel 10 television.
“We are following ... the possible transfer of advanced munitions systems, mainly anti-aircraft missiles or heavy
ground-to-ground missiles, but there could also be a possibility of the transfer of chemical means (weapons) from Syria to Lebanon,” he added.
“The moment (Syrian President Bashar al-Assad) starts to fall we will conduct intelligence monitoring and will liaise with other agencies,” Barak said.
Hezbollah, which has in the past received military and financial support from Syria and Iran, launched thousands of mainly short-range rockets into Israel during Israel’s 2006 offensive in southern Lebanon, but some longer-range rockets reached central Israel.
Their border has largely remained quiet since then.
On Thursday, Barak toured the Golan Heights, a strategic plateau that Israel captured from Syria in the Middle East war in 1967 and from where it can monitor movements inside the territory of its northern foe.
Barak said Israeli troops were preparing to prevent an influx of refugees into territory that Israel controls there.
“They (refugees) have not chosen to come close to us, but in the event of the regime’s downfall, which could happen..., (Israeli forces) here are alert and ready, and if we have to stop waves of refugees, we will stop them,” Barak said.
Syrian rebels have assassinated four of Assad’s closest aides in Damascus and seized three border crossings with Iraq and Turkey this week, putting the Syrian leader under greater pressure than at any time in the 16-month uprising against his rule.
Diplomats
Brazil’s Foreign Ministry says it has removed nearly all diplomats from its embassy in Syria because of heavy fighting there.
The ministry says in an emailed statement Friday that the diplomats are now stationed in Beirut.
The ministry emphasized it’s not closing the embassy. It says a diplomat remains in Damascus to attend to any Brazilians in the Middle Eastern country.
Fighting between government troops and rebels has been raging in Syria’s capital Damascus, with hundreds being killed in recent days.
Brazil has a large and influential expatriate Syrian community, mostly in Sao Paulo, South America’s largest city.
The first Syrian immigrants arrived toward the end of the 18th century and established themselves in business, medicine and academics.