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Saturday, July 21, 2012
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It’s all in your smile guys, says the CTO
Gunman mows down 12 in Denver cinema
Revolutionary new tablet innovation in the pipeline
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FREE with your Sunday Mail People Meet the Cyprus Olympic team
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Fighting rages in Damascus Wednesday bomb attack claims spy chief By Oliver Holmes
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Sport The Cypriot taking on one of the world’s largest waves
What’s on Site-specific summer dance festival this week in Limassol
Competition Win a weekend for two at Alexander the Great
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yrian troops fought on the corpsestrewn streets of the capital and at far-flung border posts yesterday to reverse gains by rebels, who have advanced relentlessly in the 48 hours since much of President Bashar al-Assad’s entourage was assassinated. Assad’s intelligence chief died yesterday of wounds sustained in Wednesday’s bomb attack, becoming the fourth member of his narrow circle of kin and lieutenants to be killed by a blast that has transformed the 16-month conflict. Since then, rebels have pushed deep into the heart of the capital and seized control of other towns. On Thursday, they captured three border crossings with Iraq and Turkey, the first time they have held sway over Syria’s frontiers. Assad has failed to speak in public since Wednesday, adding to the sense that one of the most strategically important countries in the Middle East is being torn from the grasp of his family, which has ruled it as a personal fiefdom for more than four decades. The next few days will be critical in determining whether Assad’s govern-
ment can recover from the bombing, which wiped out much of his command structure in a single blow and destroyed his clan’s aura of invulnerability. Regional and world powers are now bracing for the last phase of the conflict, hoping to shoehorn Assad out of power without unleashing a sectarian war that could spill across borders in one of the most volatile parts of the world. A Western diplomat said it was understood that the Syrian leader had phoned the head of a UN observer mission after Wednesday’s blast, saying he would accept an international peace plan if the West forced the opposition to halt attacks. The mission head, General Robert Mood, was not available to comment. In at least one apparent success for Assad’s forces, state television said troops had cleared the central Damascus district of Midan of “mercenaries and terrorists”. It aired footage of dead men in T-shirts, some covered in blood, others burned. Opposition activists and rebel sources confirmed yesterday that they had withdrawn from that district after coming under heavy bombardment, but TURN TO PAGE 9
A handout picture released by the official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) yesterday shows coffins being carried during the state funerals of the victims of the July 18, 2012 suicide bombing in Damascus that killed three top regime officials (AFP)