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Observers: More Than 120 Die in Fighting in Syria Tuesday

This image taken from video obtained from the Ugarit news network, which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, shows smoke rising from the city following heavy bombing from military warplanes, in Deir el-Zour's Jbeileh neigh

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VOA News

October 30, 2012

Syrian opposition backers say fighting and airstrikes across the country killed more than 120 people Tuesday, including a government air force general.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says Syrian warplanes struck Maarat al-Numan, a strategic, rebel-held town on the Damascus-Aleppo highway.

The observers also say the Syrian army and rebels fought in a Palestinian refugee camp near Damascus.

Also Tuesday, Syrian state television blamed the assassination of air force General Abdullah Mahmoud al-Khalidi on those it calls terrorists. It gave no details. But the French News Agency reports that the rebel Free Syrian Army claims it killed the general because he was in charge of military training.

Syrian rebels and government troops ignored a truce called for the Muslim Eid al-Adha holiday. The cease-fire officially ended Monday

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Boston Bomber Spent 6 Months in Russia’s Most Violent Republic

The news of the Boston Marathon bombings circled the globe, and resonated here in Dagestan, a majority Muslim republic in Russia, on the shores of the Caspian Sea. Last year, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the older of two brothers suspected of the bombings and a long-time Boston resident, returned to Dagestan, where he had lived for a year during his youth. Dagestan was the land of his maternal ancestors. But in the last two years, this republic of 3 million people has gained notoriety as the region with the highest level of political and religious violence in all of Russia. VOA's James Brooke reports from Makhachkala, Russia.