Syria airstrike at bakery kills 60, group says

50 critically hurt; attack seen as revenge for rebels’ gains

— A government airstrike on a bakery in a rebel-held town in central Syria killed more than 60 people Sunday, activists said, casting a pall over a visit by the international envoy tasked with negotiating an end to the country’s civil war.

The strike on the town of Halfaya left scattered bodies and debris up and down a street, and more than a dozen dead and wounded were trapped in a tangled heap of dirt and rubble.

The attack appeared to be the government response to a newly announced rebel offensive seeking to drive the Syrian army from a constellation of towns and village north of the central city of Hama. Halfaya was the firstof the area’s towns to be “liberated” by rebel fighters, and activists saw Sunday’s attack as payback.

“Halfaya was the first and biggest victory in the Hama countryside,” said Hama activist Mousab Alhamadee. “That’s why the regime is punishing them in this way.”

The total death toll remained unclear, but the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said more than 60 people were killed. That number is expected to rise, it said, because about 50 of those wounded in the strike are in critical condition.

Amateur videos posted online Sunday showed residents and armed rebels rushing to the scene. One stopped to cover a mound of humanflesh lying in the street with his coat.

More than a dozen dead or seriously wounded people lay in the street near a simple, concrete building, some in puddles of blood. Near its front wall, bodies jutted from a pile of dirt and rubble on the sidewalk.

Samer, a local activist in the town, said he ran to the bakery soon after he heard a warplane, followed by bomb explosions and finally the sound of ambulances. “There were bodies everywhere,” he said, adding that he saw tens of bodies taken away in cars.

Photographs he said he took at the bakery showed bodies in a heap on a bloody sidewalk outside a low-slung building that was blackened with soot and stained with patches of blood, high on the walls. Amateur video showing what activists said was the aftermath of the attack showed roughly a dozen people lying on the ground, some wounded and several apparently dead.

In one of Samer’s photographs, a man stared in shock at the scene with his hands resting on his head, while another carried body parts.

The bakery was one of three in the city. When word spread Sunday that a flour shipment from Turkey had come in, people began lining up around noon, waiting for their turn at its windows for bread after a stretch of days when the bakeries had been idle. At least three bombs fell near the bakery, Samer and other activists said.

Rebels screamed in distress while trying to extract the bodies, while others carried away the wounded.

It was unclear from the videos if the building was indeed a bakery. Nearly all the dead and wounded appeared to be men, some wore camouflage, raising the possibility that the jet had targeted a rebel gathering.

For the past week, rebels have been launching attacks in the area, most notably in the nearby village of Morek, where they hope to seize control of the country’s main north-south highway, preventing the regime from getting supplies to its forces farther north in the provinces of Idlib and Aleppo.

On Saturday, one rebel group threatened to storm two predominantly Christian towns nearby if their residents did not “evict” government troops they said were using them as a base to attack nearby areas.

The activist accounts could not be independently verified because of restrictions on reporting in Syria. The Syrian government does not respond to requests for comment on its military activities.

The attack coincided with the start of a two-day visit by Lakhdar Barhimi, who represents the U.N. And the Arab League, to meet with top Syrian officials.

Brahimi has made little apparent progress toward ending Syria’s crisis since assuming his post in September, mostly because the sides appear more interested in fighting it out than in sitting down for talks.

Brahimi did not speak publicly upon arriving in Damascus for a two-day mission, and it was unclear whether he would present new ideas to end the war. His trip appeared troubled from the start.

Instead of flying directly to Syria as he had on previous visits, Brahimi landed in Beirut and traveled to the Syrian capital by land because of fighting near the Damascus airport, Lebanese officials said.

The Lebanese officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief reporters, said Brahimi was expected to meet Syria’s foreign minister later Sunday and President Bashar Assad today.

The trip is Brahimi’s third since taking the job after the resignation of former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan after both sides disregarded a cease-fire he brokered in April.

While not advancing a comprehensive peace plan, Brahimi has called on the sides to negotiate a solution.

The security situation has gotten notably worse for the regime since his last visit, with rebels storming a number of military bases and seizing valuable munitions. Russia, Assad’s most powerful international backer, also appears to have changed his assessment of Assad’s strength, as top officials say they do not seek to preserve his regime, while still calling for a negotiated solution.

Still, neither side appears willing to talk.

In a lengthy Sunday news conference, Syrian Information Minister Omran al-Zoubi repeated the Syrian government’s line that it is fighting terrorist groups backed by foreign powers who seek to destroy Syria.

Al-Zoubi said the government was willing to engage in dialogue but said the other side wasn’t.

Rebel groups refuse to talk to Assad, saying too many people have died for him to be considered part of the solution.

Violence raged elsewhere in the country Sunday. Antiregime activists reported government airstrikes on suburbs east of the capital and the northern province of Aleppo.

Airstrikes on the town of al-Safira, south of Aleppo, killed 13 people, including a mother and five daughters from one family, a local activist named Hussein said. He gave only his first name for fear of retribution.

The Observatory said at least 10 rebels and an unknown number of government troops were killed in clashes in Afreen, near Aleppo, Syria’s largest city, as rebels sought to storm an army base there.

Information for this article was contributed by Ben Hubbard and Albert Aji of The Associated Press and by Kareem Fahim, Hala Droubi, Hwaida Saad and Ellen Barry of The New York Times.

Front Section, Pages 1 on 12/24/2012

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