
Syrian Vice-President Farouq al-Shara (08/25/12) met an Iranian delegation in Damascus, ending weeks of speculation that he had defected to the opposition. On Thursday, troops backed by tanks and helicopter gunships stormed Daraya after intense shelling and fighting that lasted days. The battle for Daraya showed the regime to be struggling to control Damascus and its suburbs though the firepower available to it is far superior to anything the rebels might have. Government forces are stretched thin, with a major ongoing battle for control of the nation's largest city, Aleppo in the north, as well as smaller scale operations in the east and south. On Sunday, regime forces also used helicopter gunships and tanks to pound rebel-held areas in the northern city of Aleppo and the restive southern town of Daraa along the Jordanian border. The Observatory said it had reports of fatalities, but did not have exact numbers yet. Activists say more than 20,000 people have died in 17 months of fighting in Syria, as an uprising that started with peaceful protests against Assad's rule has morphed into a civil war. On the Turkish-Syrian border, several thousand Syrians gathered at Bab al-Salameh border crossing, having fled airstrikes in their northern towns and villages. They squatted on the sidewalks of three large hangars once used for cargo inspections of trucks. Some said they had been there a week or more. Mohammed Abdel-Hay, 41, said his family of seven fled the village of Marea after a regime warplane bombed it last week, destroying a house and killing two people. 'They shelled us and we didn't leave. They hit us with helicopters and we didn't leave. Then they brought warplanes than drop huge bombs that destroy entire houses and we left,' he said. Since then, the family has staked out a patch of sidewalk where they sit on a plastic mat with a few grain sacks full of clothes. Mustafa Khatib, 40, a middle school principal from the same village, said he, his wife and their five children fled about the same time and have been staying in the hangar ever since. The hangar has only one set of latrines, which the women and children use, so the men must use nearby fields. Water was short, and Khatib said he hadn't showered in a week. He said all he had eaten all day was a piece of bread and a hardboiled egg brought by a local Syrian aid group. Like most of the families, Khatib said he hoped to get into a refugee camp in Turkey, but had been told there was no room. 'We'll stay here and wait and see,' he said. 'Every day, we ask and they tell us today or tomorrow, but they've been saying that for a week and we're still here.'
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