Virtually all Internet service in Syria shut down, group says
November 30, 2012 -- Updated 0202 GMT (1002 HKT)
Internet, phone service out in Syria
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- NEW: More than 90% Internet access blocked, Renesys says
- NEW: U.S. Ambassador to Syria says communications gear given to Syrians to get around blocks
- Rebels claim to have shot down three government aircraft in 24 hours
- Turkey formally requests Patriot missiles from NATO
It was not clear who was
behind the latest event, but the government has intermittently cut off
Internet access several times in the past two years.
Opposition activists often transmit updates about the civil war in reports and images on the Web.
Syria has shut down the Internet in the past, said U.S. Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford.
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Ford added that the
United States has given "a thousand pieces of non-lethal equipment --
largely communications gear" to help opposition activists get around
blocks to the Internet.
He was speaking in Washington about the humanitarian situation in the country on Wednesday and responding to CNN's questions.
"The Syrian government
has been monitoring [the Internet] for years. They have been using the
Internet with Iranian assistance to track opposition activists, arrest
and kill them," Ford said.
"That is the reason why
our non-lethal assistance to the Syrian opposition, we put a special
emphasis on communications equipment precisely to help the Syrian people
tell the world what is going on inside Syria," he said.
Ford said he doesn't want a repeat of the 1982 massacre in Hama when Hafez al-Assad, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's father, shut down all communication there and the world didn't have a clear picture of what had occurred.
"A lot of the pictures
that you see on the nightly news are from communication equipment that
we supply to very brave and very dedicated opposition activists inside
Syria," Ford said. "We have provided over a thousand pieces of
non-lethal equipment -- largely communications gear to help them get
around the restrictions on the Internet that the Syrian government
imposes."
Meanwhile, the road to
Damascus International Airport has been shut down because of continuing
clashes and military operations in towns on the outskirts of the city,
the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
Egypt Air is canceling flights to Syria starting Friday until further notice, said Egypt Air spokesperson Mohamed Rahma.
The airline cited the
"deteriorating situation" around the Damascus airport, a Cairo airport
official said, according to Egyptian semi-official news agency al Ahram.
These events are part, some believe, of a possible turning point in the nearly two-year war.
On Wednesday villagers
in northern Syria picked pieces of a downed fighter jet from an olive
grove after rebel fighters claimed to have shot down three government
aircraft in 24 hours.
Syrian President Bashar
al-Assad's government has relied more on air power to battle the
21-month-old revolt against it, and witnesses said a cheer went up when
the jet went down near Aleppo.
"We want to take this
... to show them in the other villages," a man who identified himself as
Abu Dargham told CNN as he showed off two twisted chunks of metal. "Let
them see what happened to these planes."
The downed plane's tail
was largely intact, but the fuselage was in pieces and the type of
aircraft was not immediately identifiable. Locals picked it apart, with
some stuffing pieces into in bags as a tractor hauled away what appeared
to be an engine. Cheering children were piled on the tractor as it
drove away.
Witnesses said two
fliers ejected from the plane before the crash. One was found
unconscious and taken to a makeshift clinic, while villagers said they
were still searching for the other late Wednesday.
Rebels posted two videos online to support their claims. One shows rebels carrying an unconscious man
wearing what looks like a military pilot uniform, while another
includes footage of medics bandaging a bloodied and moaning pilot.
"Here is the pilot who was shelling houses of civilians!" someone says off-camera. "The heroes of Darret Ezza shot down his plane!"
In addition to the jet
brought down Wednesday, the rebels say they have shot down two
helicopters since Tuesday night. Rebel video showed one helicopter
exploding in midair, but CNN could not independently confirm the
authenticity of the footage.
The claims of success
follow the capture of a key Syrian air force installation last week.
Rebel fighters who overran the base reported finding more than 300 Soviet-era anti-aircraft missiles, along with heavy machine guns, rockets and even tanks.
About half the shoulder-fired missiles were inoperable, but the rebels soon posted video instructing viewers how to handle
the ones that worked. Syrian commanders often kept the trigger
components separately to prevent the weapons from being used if they
were captured.
The installation housed
troops from the Syrian army's 46th Regiment. Rebel forces surrounded the
base for two months, harassing the troops inside with sniper fire and
waiting for them to weaken, Hussein al-Shule said.
"The government will try
to airdrop supplies from helicopter. They did not dare land," al-Shule
said. "Most times they would miss, and we would take the food. It was
inedible."
Opposition says 157 killed Wednesday
The claims came on a day
when opposition activists said another 160 people were killed in the
country's civil war, which dates back to March 2011. Of those, at least
15 were killed in shelling at Al-Ansari district in the city of Aleppo
on Thursday, among the deaths were 5 children and two women, at least 20
others were wounded.
In Daraa, a car bomb
exploded outside the house of the head main branch of the Baath party.
Three guards were killed, and four were seriously injured.
By the end of Wednesday,
at least 96 had died in the Damascus area, most of them in a single
incident -- a pair of car bombings in the town of Jaramana that killed
77 people, according to the Local Coordination Committees of Syria, a
network of opposition activists.
Jaramana, a small town
surrounded by fields, has provided a refuge for pro-government Syrians
displaced in the civil war. Its residents are a mix of Christians and
Druze, the latter a minority offshoot of Shiite Islam. Women and
children were among those killed there, the London-based Syrian
Observatory for Human Rights reported.
Syria's Interior Ministry had conflicting numbers for the bombings, reporting 34 dead and 83 injured.
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At the same time the car
bombs went off, two explosive devices simultaneously detonated in the
al-Nahda and al-Qerayyat neighborhoods, both of which are in the
Damascus suburbs. Officials did not provide a casualty count in those
areas.
Government officials
blamed the attacks on terrorists, a term Syria routinely uses for rebel
fighters and extremist elements in the country.
About 40,000 civilians
have been killed since the first protests began against al-Assad's
government, according to the opposition Center for Documentation of Violations in Syria. More than 380,000 Syrian refugees have fled to neighboring countries, creating humanitarian challenges abroad.
CNN cannot confirm
claims by the government or the opposition because of government
restrictions that prevent journalists from reporting freely within
Syria.
Turkey's role
Turkey asked NATO
Wednesday for Patriot missiles to bolster its air defenses against its
southern neighbor, with which it shares an 822-kilometer (about
511-mile) border.
A letter to NATO
included the "formal request" that the alliance send "air defense
elements," according to a Turkish government statement that cited "the
threats and risks posed by the continuing crisis in Syria to our
national security."
The statement added that the NATO Council would convene "shortly" to consider the matter.
NATO Secretary-General
Anders Fogh Rasmussen said in a Twitter post that the request would be
considered without delay. A fact-finding team is on the ground in
Turkey, according to Lt. Col. Jay Janzen, a spokesman for Supreme
Headquarters Allied Powers Europe.
"The fact-finding teams
include experts from the nations that have shown their willingness to
offer Patriots as well as Turkish officials and a few NATO experts," he
said.
Turkish officials have
emphasized that any deployment of the Patriot missiles would be purely
for defensive measures. President Abdullah Gul said earlier this month
that Turkey has no intention of going to war with Syria.
A NATO official who is
not authorized to speak on record to the media told CNN that the
fact-finding team now in Turkey includes military personnel from
Germany, the United States and Holland, the three countries that have
available Patriot missile batteries.
The official also indicated that those batteries could be deployed dozens of kilometers away from the border fence.
"No decisions have been made about the location and numbers of Patriot batteries in Turkey," the official said.
The official said he
doesn't believe "there will be an imminent threat from this deployment
escalating the conflict between Turkey and Syria."
"By contrast, I think it
will demonstrate a deterrence effect," the official said, "and make it
clear that NATO is prepared to defend Turkish territory and Turkish
population."
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