The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

	Syrian forces bombard Damascus * Troops use helicopters and tanks * Fighting around intelligence base in Aleppo Beirut/Amman, July 22 Syrian forces bombarded parts of Damascus with helicopter gunships today, witnesses said, clawing back territory from the rebels a week after the fighters launched what they called a final battle for the capital. In a further escalation of a conflict that emboldened opponents of President Bashar al-Assad have turned into all-out civil war, fighting raged around the intelligence headquarters in the biggest city Aleppo and in Deir al-Zor in the east. Syrian forces regained control of one of two border crossings seized by rebels on the frontier with Iraq, Iraqi officials said, but rebels said they had captured a third border crossing with Turkey, Bab al-Salam north of Aleppo. "Seizing the border crossings does not have strategic importance but it has a psychological impact because it demoralises Assad's force," a senior Syrian army defector in Turkey, Staff Brigadier Faiz Amr, told Reuters by phone. It's a show of progress for the revolutionaries, despite the superior firepower of Assad's troops." The bombardments in Damascus and Deir al-Zor were some of the fiercest yet and showed Assad's determination to avenge a bomb on Wednesday that killed four members of his high command. It was the gravest blow in a 16-month-old uprising that has turned into an armed revolt against four decades of Assad rule. Rebels were driven from Mezzeh, the diplomatic district of Damascus, residents and opposition activists said, and more than 1,000 government troops and allied militiamen, backed by armoured vehicles, tanks and bulldozers entered the area. Three persons were killed and 50 others, mostly civilians, were wounded in the early morning bombardment, said Thabet, a Mezzeh resident. "The district is besieged and the wounded are without medical care," he said. "I saw men stripped to their underwear. Three buses took detainees from al-Farouk, including women and whole families. Several houses have been set on fire." The neighbourhood of Barzeh, one of three northern areas hit by helicopter fire, was also under siege, by troops from the elite fourth division. The division is run by Assad's younger brother, Maher al-Assad, 41, who is widely seen as the muscle maintaining the Assad family's Alawite minority rule. His role has become more crucial since Assad's defence and intelligence ministers, a top general and his powerful brother-in-law were killed by the bomb on Wednesday, part of a "Damascus volcano" by rebels seeking to turn the tables in a revolt inspired by Arab Spring uprisings in Tunisia, Libya and Egypt. Assad has not spoken in public since the bombing. Diplomats and opposition sources said government forces were focusing on strategic centres, with one Western diplomat comparing Assad to a doctor "abandoning the patient's limbs to save the organs". Syrian state television quoted a media source denying that helicopters had fired on the capital. "The situation in Damascus is normal, but the security forces are pursuing the remnants of the terrorists in some streets," it said. Assad's forces, who also pushed into a rebel-held district in the northerly commercial hub of Aleppo on Saturday, targeted pockets of lightly armed rebels, who moved about the streets on foot, attacking security installations and roadblocks. — Reuters
	China to formally garrison disputed South China Sea Beijing, July 22 China's powerful Central Military Commission has approved the formal establishment of a military garrison for the disputed South China Sea, state media said on Sunday, in a move which could further boost tensions in already fractious region. China has a substantial military presence in the South China Sea and the move is essentially a further assertion of its sovereignty claims after it last month upped the administrative status of the seas to the level of a city, which it calls Sansha. The official Xinhua news agency said the Sansha garrison would be responsible for "national defence mobilisation... guarding the city and supporting local emergency rescue and disaster relief" and "carrying out military missions". It provided no further details. Sansha city is based on what is known in English as Woody Island, part of the Paracel Islands also claimed by Vietnam and Taiwan. China took full control of the Paracels in 1974 after a naval showdown with Vietnam. Though Sansha's permanent population is no more than a few thousand, mostly fishermen, it's administrative responsibility covers China's vast claims in the South China Sea and its myriad mostly uninhabited atolls and reefs. Vietnam had protested against the Chinese decision. It cited a month-old statement by an official that the designation of "the so-called Sansha city" was illegal and overlapped with districts Vietnam identified as its own. The South China Sea has become Asia's biggest potential military flashpoint as Beijing's sovereignty claim over the huge area has set it against Vietnam and the Philippines as the three countries race to tap possibly huge oil reserves. Southeast Asian states sought to save face on Friday with a call for restraint and dialogue, but made no progress in healing a deep divide about how to respond to China's growing assertiveness in the disputed waters. — Reuters
	Taliban execute five Afghans for NATO links Kabul, July 22 Taliban insurgents executed five civilians near Kabul for working with NATO troops, authorities said today, the latest in a series of militant activities in villages around the capital. The incident in central Wardak province's Jalrez district, 40 km south of Kabul, came a day after the insurgents publicly lashed two Afghan men and just weeks after the public execution of a woman for adultery. In Jalrez, the rebels captured six Afghans returning home from work at a NATO base. The bodies of five of them were found today, all booby-trapped with explosives, a statement from the provincial governor's office said. Their hands were tied behind their backs, a witness told AFP. The sixth man fled his captors, the statement added, blaming the killings on the Taliban, the main insurgent group fighting the Western-backed government of President Hamid Karzai and a 130,000-strong NATO force. The rebels are particularly active across the southern and eastern provinces, and appear to have stepped up efforts to impose their harsh version of Islamic Sharia laws implemented when they were in power between 1996 and 2001. Yesterday, Taliban insurgents whipped two men 40 times in public in a village south of Kabul after accusing them of attempting to kidnap a young boy for ransom. Earlier this month, a video showing the public execution of a 22-year-old woman who was shot in the back in Parwan province just north of Kabul in front of a crowd of cheering men, drew worldwide condemnation. — AFP
	Allen talks operational cooperation with Pak Afzal Khan in Islamabad Gen John Allen, Commander of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan, has said that if the Pakistan Army launches an operation in North Waziristan Agency (NWA), they were prepared to pay extra attention to any spillover that may occur because of the operation. He was talking about cooperation to The Express Tribune in Kabul. This is the first time a US official has talked about the possibility of operational coordination in the event of an operation conducted by the Pakistan Army on its side. General Allen was responding to the observation that while the US keeps pushing Pakistan to do more, but refused cooperation when the Pakistan Army launched an operation in South Waziristan in October 2009. The ISAF vacated its posts on the other side making it easy for the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan fighters to slip into Afghanistan to avoid getting captured and killed. Gen Allen said there was “enough deployment on our side in the territory abutting the North Waziristan Agency”. However, he would not talk about the exact strength and also refused to say if an operation in NWA or its timing was part of the operational meetings between him and Pakistan Army chief Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani. “You will have to put this question to General Kayani,” he said. General Allen refused to comment on the exact nature of coordination with the Pakistan Army if and when the latter launches an operation in the NWA, saying “it will not be right for me to talk about operational details”. In more general terms, however, he said his meetings with General Kayani, both bilateral and the recent ones along with Afghanistan army chief Lt-Gen Sher Mohammad Karimi, had focused on “cross-border movement” from both sides. “We had very good discussions and we looked into areas of cooperation which need to be improved.” He vehemently denied that the Salala incident was a deliberate attempt by the US military to get even with the Pakistani military. He said that this impression in Pakistan was totally off the mark and Salala was a tragedy where mistakes were made by both sides. “The central issue in current talks is how to ensure that such an incident does not happen again. We enjoy an excellent relationship,” he said.
	10 die after rains pound Beijing Chinese capital has heaviest rainfall in 60 yrs Beijing, July 22 The heaviest rain storm in six decades to hit the Chinese capital killed at least 10 persons and caused widespread chaos, flooding streets and stranding 80,000 people at the city's main airport, state media reported on Sunday. The storm, which started on Saturday afternoon and continued late into the night, flooded major roads and sent torrents of water tumbling down steps into underpasses. In the Beijing suburb of Tongzhou, two people died in a roof collapse and another person killed was struck by lightning, the official Xinhua news agency reported. Other deaths were caused by electric shocks from downed power lines and drowning, it added, without giving an exact breakdown. More than 500 flights were cancelled at Beijing's Capital International Airport, the Beijing News said. However, the subway system was largely unaffected, aside from being swamped with people desperate to get home and unable to use cars, buses or taxis. The city received about 170 mm of rain on average, though a township in Fangshan district to Beijing's west was hit by 460mm, Xinhua said. The Beijing city government said on its website it was working to get the metropolis back on its feet, but reminded people to prepare for further bad weather. "The weather forecasters say that from late July to early September this city is prone to flooding, and there could be further large-scale storms or extreme weather," it said. Many residents took to China's popular microblogging site Sina Weibo to post dramatic pictures of the storm. Some complained the city should have been prepared, especially as the government had issued a severe storm warning the day before. "It was forecast early on that Beijing would get torrential rain, so why were pumps and other facilities not prepared in time?" complained one user. — Reuters
	French Prez’s partner tweeting again after storm Paris, July 22 French first lady Valerie Trierweiler was tweeting again today for the first time since she provoked a political storm with a jibe against President Francois Hollande's ex-partner. Trierweiler had said last week she would think twice before tweeting, after Hollande delivered a rebuke to his partner, telling those close to him to ensure that personal matters were kept private. In her tweet at the height of France's parliamentary election campaign last month, Trierweiler backed an opponent of Segolene Royal, the president's ex-partner and mother of their four children. The tweet attracted widespread media coverage around the world with the French press calling it an embarrassment to the newly-elected Hollande and setting off a debate about the role of the first lady, now dubbed Tweetweiler. In today's tweet, Trierweiler referred to Hollande's speech at a ceremony marking the 70th anniversary of the "Vel' d'Hiv Roundup" -- when police in occupied France used a velodrome to hold thousands of Jews who were subsequently sent to the Auschwitz death camp and other camps. "Everything is going well dear friends. Magnificent speech by the president commemorating the Vel d'Hiv roundup. Very moving," she tweeted. Last week, Trierweiler told French television she would "count to 10" before tweeting. Her comment followed a statement by Hollande declaring: "Private affairs are resolved in private. And I have told this to those close to me so they can scrupulously accept this principle." There has long been speculation of intense rivalry between Royal and Trierweiler. Hollande stood loyally by Royal as she battled Nicolas Sarkozy for the presidency in the 2007 race, but he had reportedly been in a relationship since 2005 with Trierweiler, a twice-divorced 47-year-old mother of three. — AFP