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Rockets fall on Damascus

Jaish al-Islam began a wide-scale rocket attack on Damascus in response to the Syrian regime’s shelling of eastern Ghouta, which allegedly killed civilians.
Red Crescent members and residents remove a dead body from a damaged site after what activists said were air strikes by forces loyal to Syria's President Bashar al-Assad in Douma eastern Al-Ghouta, near Damascus January 25, 2015. Islamist fighters struck the Syrian capital with at least 38 rockets on Sunday, killing seven people, a monitoring group said, in one of heaviest attacks on Damascus in over a year. State media confirmed the attack and said at least four people were killed. It said the army was ret
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DAMASCUS, Syria — In the city of Hamouriya in eastern Ghouta, Rif Dimashq governorate, Jan. 23 was no ordinary day. Syrian military aircraft attacked a crowded marketplace and killed 60 civilians, including children and women. Afterward, the market was hit by mortar shells in the heaviest bombardment in the city since the Hamouriya massacre on Feb. 20, 2013, which resulted in the deaths of 100 civilians.

The shelling came at a time when the Syrian regime has intensified its air raids on Douma, Arbin and Zamalka in eastern Ghouta. The state and pro-regime media outlets did not give any details about the shelling on the city of Hamouriya, while the Syrian news agency, SANA, reported only, “The army units are securing the exit of 107 citizens from eastern Ghouta.” SANA also released a video in which some families seemed afraid and confused while leaving Ghouta in front of the camera.

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