Syrian rebels target army and state media sites, 58 killed

Rebels target the state-run SANA news agency offices in Damascus The Syrian regime killed 58 people as opposition fighters attacked key government positions across the country, Local Coordination Committees said. Rebels fighting President Bashar al-Assad’s regime blew up an officers’ club in Daraa, While Damascus was rocked by huge explosions targeting the state-run SANA news agency in Alramkh.
Activists claimed Syrian forces pounded southern Damascus with shelling and rockets, bombing Medmah, Sham and Zamalka.
Government shelling reportedly targeted Teftrenaz on Sunday morning, striking the military airport there after rebels captured the site. Insurgents responded by blowing up an officers’ club in Daraa, killing at least 20 military personnel.
Syrian armed forces also resumed shelling on the Yarmouk refugee camp in southern Damascus.
The capital witnessed a fresh wave of violence as rebels hit the state-owned SANA news agency in Alramkh.
Activist sources reported major damage to the building, while military reports claimed the blast was so powerful it caused major structural damage to the building.
Government forces have responded with notably tighter security restrictions in and around Damascus.
"The Syrian army is preparing to conduct extensive military operations in Ghouta in rural eastern Damascus in order to clear the armed presence there,” Russia Today quoted a military official as saying.
President Assad hit back at Israel on Sunday following Wednesday’s raid on military stocks at a “scientific research centre” in Damascus province. The raid, Assad claimed, "unmasked the true role Israel is playing in collaboration with foreign enemy forces and their agents on Syrian soil – to destabilise and weaken Syria.”
Speaking during a meeting with Saeed Jalili, head of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, Assad said his country’s military was capable of confronting “current threats and aggression.”
Syrian television broadcasted images of the meeting. According to the SANA news agency, officials discussed regional developments following the Israeli attack.
Jalili condemned the air raid, which killed two Syrian workers, as “a foolish act.”
Iran’s Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi meanwhile praised an initiative launched by Syrian National Coalition [SNC] chief Mouaz al-Khatib, which called for direct talks with the Assad government according to preconditions.
“I was very happy when I heard al-Khatib is ready to enter into negotiations with government representatives,” Salehi said.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov met with Khatib on Saturday on the sidelines of an international security conference in Munich.
During the meeting, the first between Russian and Syrian opposition figures, Lavrov reportedly expressed Russia's interest in maintaining "regular contact" with the Syrian opposition.
Lavrov also met with US Vice President Joe Biden, in attempts to ease “major differences” between the two countries’ positions on the 22-month conflict in Syria.
The New York Times claimed the White House had rejected a plan drawn up last summer to arm and train Syrian opposition fighters, amid fears of implicating the United States in the Syrian conflict and arming al-Qaeda-linked jihadists currently fighting inside the country.
Israeli media sources meanwhile reported an initiative by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to established a restricted military zone 16 kilometres between Syria and Israel, in an attempt to premeditate a potential security crisis following the fall of Bashar al-Assad.