Syria rebels use new arms to down chopper

Syrian rebels downed an army helicopter for the first time on Tuesday with a ground-to-air missile from newly acquired stocks, a watchdog said, in a potential turning point for the 20-month conflict. A car bomb hit a regime security post near Damascus and clashes raged around the capital, as rebels further tightened the noose around the key northern city of Aleppo. Human Rights Watch called on Syria's army to stop using cluster bombs, two days after an air strike killed at least 11 children and state media published the names of nearly 150 foreign fighters it said had died alongside insurgents. "It is the first time that the rebels have shot down a helicopter with a surface-to-air missile," Syrian Observatory for Human Rights director Rami Abdel Rahman said of the gunship that was on a strafing run near a besieged northwest base. The Sheikh Suleiman base, 25 kilometres (15 miles) west of Aleppo, is the last garrison in government hands between Syria's second city and the Turkish border. An amateur video uploaded to YouTube showed a helicopter plunging to the ground in a ball of flames. The Observatory said the missile was part of a consignment newly received by the rebels that had the potential to change the balance of military power in the conflict which began as a peaceful uprising in March last year. Near Damascus, a car bomb killed at least two soldiers at a military police checkpoint in Jdeidet Artuz as the regime pursued its efforts against insurgent strongholds south of the capital. Battles raged in Moadamiyet al-Sham and nearby Daraya, where a massacre in August killed more than 500 people, according to the Observatory. Rebels meanwhile seized a military post 15 kilometres southeast of Aleppo, tightening the noose around the city, both the insurgents and the Observatory said. After hours of fighting, the rebels in the area said they had taken the post at dawn in the village of Al-Mintar, near Al-Safireh. The operation was carried out by the Islamist group Ahrar al-Sham which fights alongside the Free Syrian Army, the main component of the armed opposition to President Bashar al-Assad's regime, they said. Seventy soldiers were killed or captured, and the rebels seized six 23-mm cannons, rocket batteries, and other weapons and ammunition, they added. It came a day after insurgents took control of a dam in an area that connects Aleppo and Raqa provinces, leaving the regime with only the highway from Damascus to send reinforcements, according to Abdel Rahman. Elsewhere, in Idlib province in the northwest, an aerial bombardment near an olive press killed at least five people and wounded dozens, the Observatory said. In the same province, rebel-held Maaret al-Numan was also bombed from the air as clashes raged at the southern entrance of the town strategically located on the Damascus-Aleppo road. Human Rights Watch called on the army to stop using cluster bombs after at least 11 children were killed by an air strike south of Damascus on Sunday. According to two witnesses cited by HRW, the air strike occurred as a group of around 20 children were gathered in a field where they usually play. "This attack shows how cluster munitions kill without discriminating between civilians and military personnel," said Mary Wareham, the New York-based rights group's arms division advocacy director. The Syrian regime insists it is fighting against foreign-backed "terrorists," and state media published the names of 142 fighters from 18 countries who it said were killed alongside rebels. Pro-regime Al-Watan published a list, which it said Damascus sent to the UN Security Council last month, that included Arab, North African, Central and South Asian fighters, giving the date and place of their death. "Most are jihadists who belong to Al-Qaeda's network, or who joined it after arriving in Syria," the paper said, adding they entered Syria via Turkey and Lebanon. An initial toll from the Observatory, which relies on a network of activists and medics for its information, said 87 people were killed across Syria on Tuesday, including 32 civilians. The watchdog has recorded a total of more than 40,000 deaths in the Syrian conflict.