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Syria Rebels Seize Border Posts as Residents Flee Damascus

(New York Times) Neil MacFarquhar and Tim Arango - Rebel fighters in Syria seized all four border crossings with Iraq and one into Turkey on Thursday, while intense street fighting continued in Damascus. Government helicopters blasted the northern Damascus suburb of Qaboun with rockets, while the armed forces warned residents of a wide area of the southern part of the capital to evacuate ahead of an assault. President Bashar al-Assad appeared on state television to swear in the new defense minister to replace the one assassinated in a bomb attack. One top Iraqi government official said the border crossings were closed and that Iraqi border forces had witnessed the execution of 22 Syrian Army soldiers at the hands of the Free Syrian Army rebels. In Washington, a senior American official said Thursday that American intelligence concluded that Syrian forces were moving some of their chemical weapons arsenal to safeguard it, not to use it. The official said the upsurge in fighting did not presage an imminent fall of the government, predicting that Assad could likely hold out for at least six months. "This is an episodic erosion in his power, but he'll recover," he said.
2012-07-20 00:00:00
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