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WORLD NEWS Monday 20 March 2017

Clashes break out in Syrian capital after insurgents attack

PHILIP ISSA Qaboun neighborhoods.
Associated Press The ultraconservative Ah-
BEIRUT (AP) — Fierce clash- rar al-Sham rebel faction
es broke out in the Syrian said fighters had “liber-
capital on Sunday after in- ated” the area.The Levant
surgents infiltrated govern- Liberation Committee —
ment-held parts of the city an al-Qaida-linked group
through tunnels overnight, — and the independent
a rare if brief advance af- Failaq al-Rahman faction
ter months of steady losses also participated in the at-
at the hands of govern- tack.
ment forces elsewhere in Syrian state media said the
the country. military had repelled an at-
It was a surprising breach tack by an al-Qaida-linked
of Damascus’s security group after “terrorists” in-
perimeter, where the gov- filtrated through tunnels
ernment has effectively in the middle of the night.
walled itself off from oppo- Rebels detonated two
sition forces encamped in large car bombs at 5:20
two enclaves in the east- a.m. Sunday close to the
ern parts of the city. Jobar neighborhood. The
President Bashar Assad’s Levant Liberation Commit-
government has endeav- Gunmen carrying their weapons and family members leave the al-Waer neighborhood bound for tee claimed the attack.
ored to maintain a veneer a town on the Turkish border, in Homs, Syria, Saturday, March 18, 2017. Fierce clashes broke out in The government has been
of normalcy inside the the Syrian capital on Sunday after insurgents infiltrated government-held parts of the city through trying to pressure the reb-
capital as his forces bomb tunnels overnight, a rare if brief advance after months of steady losses at the hands of government els to surrender the pock-
forces elsewhere in the country.
opposition areas on the (AP Photo) ets they hold in Damascus
edges and suburbs of the following victories in the
city. Outside Damascus, official forces to defend anon, and other Middle ment-held gap between northern city of Aleppo, the
hundreds of thousands of its territory, including Shiite Eastern countries.The clash- two besieged opposition central city of Homs and
civilians are living under militias from Iran, Iraq, Leb- es centered on a govern- enclaves, the Jobar and other Damascus suburbs.q
government siege and
bombardment. Tax hike, stagnant wages spark protests in Beirut
Residents said artillery shells
and rockets were land- BEIRUT (AP) — Demonstra- With water bottles falling and should plug the bud- many of whom led the
ing inside the heart of the tors in downtown Beirut around him and his body- get deficit by addressing militias that tore the coun-
city, and the activist-run pelted Lebanese Prime guards shielding him with corruption instead. Parlia- try apart in the 1975-1990
Damascus Today Face- Minister Saad Hariri’s car their arms, Hariri told TV ment approved some tax civil war, are widely seen as
book group reported gov- with water bottles on Sun- cameras: “It’s true there is hikes on Wednesday.The corrupt and out of touch.
ernment air raids over the day as protests against waste and corruption in the government is paralyzed Demonstrators poured into
area of the clashes. new taxes and a stagnant country, but we will fight it.” over a budget proposal the streets in 2015 to protest
Infantry and tank reinforce- public wage scale jolted He then left the area on that would hike over a doz- a collapse in the country’s
ments arrived on the gov- the city.Hariri got out of his foot.Thousands of people en tax rates to fund a sal- waste management sec-
ernment side to repel the armored convoy behind came to the city center ary increase for teachers tor that left trash piling up
attack in the afternoon, the police line at the dem- to protest a broad tax hike and civil servants. Parlia- across the capital district.
the group said. onstration facing the gov- they say is unfairly target- ment has not authorized a Sunday’s demonstration
With its military depleted ernment’s headquarters ing the working class.Dem- new budget since 2005.The was called by the Commu-
from six years of fighting but could get no closer as onstrators said the gov- demonstrations are the lat- nist and Phalangist parties,
and defections, the Syr- protesters began throwing ernment has squandered est display of mounting dis- and joined by civil activists
ian government relies on a bottles and harrying him public funds through shady content with Lebanon’s po- campaigning against cor-
blend of official and semi- with cries of “Thieves!” public-private contracts litical elite. The politicians, ruption. q