Syria airstrikes, shelling kill 100 during holiday
Source: AP-Excite
By BEN HUBBARD
TEL RIFAT, Syria (AP) - Government forces pummeled the battered city of Aleppo with airstrikes and tanks and shelled parts of Damascus and southern Syria Monday, killing at least 100 people during a major Muslim holiday, rights groups and activists said.
The violence escalated dramatically after a one-day lull on Sunday, the start of the three-day Eid al-Fitr holiday which marks the end of the holy month of Ramadan. The renewed fighting showed President Bashar Assad's regime is not letting up on its drive to quell the 17-month-old uprising out of respect for the occasion.
In Washington, President Barack Obama said U.S. thinking on military involvement in Syria would change if chemical or biological weapons came into play in the civil war. He told reporters the use of such weapons of mass destruction would widen the conflict considerably.
"It doesn't just include Syria. It would concern allies in the region, including Israel, and it would concern us," Obama said, warning the Assad regime and "other players on the ground" that the use or movement of such weapons would be a "red line" for the United States. The U.S. has been reluctant to intervene militarily so far.
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Syrians Bassem Kharfani, left, and Mahmoud Jikar sit at the door of Jikar's house, one of more than a dozen homes destroyed in a Syrian government bombing last week that killed more than 40 people, in Azaz, Syria, Monday, Aug. 20, 2012. (AP Photo/Ben Hubbard)
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