PUTTING THE NAIL INTO ITS OWN COFFIN

US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta has made some statements about Syria before setting out on a tour of some Middle Eastern countries. Panetta said that if the Al Assad forces continued carrying out traffic attacks on its own people in Aleppo , that would be the nail in the coffin of the incumbent government. He said further that the attacks showed the Assad regime had no legitimacy left and the latest incidents were indicative of the fact that his regime was coming to an end.

Clashes in Syria concentrate in Aleppo. Reports indicate that 200 thousand people have fled Aleppo because of the clashes , that shops are closed and that only one bakery is working with long queues before it to buy bread. The Assad regime in the capital Damascus has declared victory. Syrian Foreign Minister Velid Muallim made a statement during his contacts in Iran , declaring that the opposition groups' attempts to capture Damascus had been repelled. The Syrian Revolutionary Council said 52 people, among them women, had been killed in the capital, and qualified the incidents as massacre. Shops in Damascus are open until three o'clock in the afternoon and people are seen to be withdrawing to their houses as the dark gathers.