Syria army, rebels clash near Aleppo bases

DAMASCUS

Syrian troops backed by helicopter gunships clashed with rebels near a barracks in Aleppo on Friday as battles broke out around a military airport elsewhere in the northern province, monitors said.

In Damascus, state news agency SANA said the army unearthed the bodies of 25 people shot execution-style in the Qadam district and blamed "armed terrorist groups," the regime's term for rebels.

In other developments, a masked gunman on a motorbike killed prominent Kurdish activist Mahmoud Wali on Thursday in northeastern Syria, fellow activists said.

And a tolerated opposition group said two members -- Abdel Aziz Khayer and Iyas Ayash -- had gone missing along with the man who had collected them from Damascus airport after a trip to China to discuss an end to the violence.

The National Coordination Committee for Democratic Change groups Arab nationalists, Kurds and socialists.

In Aleppo's Arkoub district, fighting erupted overnight near the Hanano army barracks, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Several districts of the northern metropolis, including Sakhur in the northeast and Bustan al-Qasr in the centre, came under attack, the Britain-based monitoring group said.

Elsewhere in the province, fighting broke out between troops and rebels near the Meng military airport, it said.

Military airfields have been a key rebel target because the regime is increasingly using air power to launch devastating strikes.

Northwest of the capital, the Observatory reported a massive explosion believed to have been a car bomb. Heavy gunfire was heard afterwards but there were no immediate reports of casualties.

In the central province of Homs, a civilian was killed in dawn shelling of Rastan, while the eastern city of Deir Ezzor and the town of Daal in the southern province of Daraa were also bombarded.

In Damascus, SANA said, soldiers acting on a tip-off from local residents found a mass grave containing 25 bodies with their hands tied and eyes masked. They had been kidnapped and killed by rebels, it said.

But as the violence rages unabated, a top NATO general said in Brussels that the alliance does not believe that military intervention would bring any improvement in Syria's security situation.

Germany's Manfred Lange, Chief of Staff of Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe, said the "political process has to be pushed forward, sanctions need to take effect. At the moment, this situation cannot be solved by the military in a responsible way."

'Beloved of the Prophet being massacred'

Protesters took to the streets in towns across the country after the main weekly Muslim prayers, as on every Friday since the revolt broke out in March 2011, activists said.

This week's protest slogan was "the beloved of the Prophet in Syria are being massacred," reflecting demonstrations in several Muslim states over a US-produced film mocking Islam and the Prophet Mohammed.

Demonstrations were held in Damascus and its province, as well as in Daraa, Hama, Aleppo and Hasaka.

Security forces fired on gatherings in the Qusur and Al-Arbain districts of Hama, and a number of people were arrested, while some demonstrators were wounded in the Aleppo provincial town of Atareb.

At least 88 people, mostly civilians, were killed in violence on Friday, the Observatory said, a day after as many as 225 died, including at least 30 in a petrol station blast in Raqa in the north, blamed on a regime air raid.

The Observatory said seven bodies had been found in Hajar al-Aswad district of Damascus that the regime recaptured from rebels earlier this week. The victims had been killed with knives or by gunfire, it said.

According to the Observatory, at least 29,000 people have been killed in the 18-month revolt against President Bashar al-Assad.

Meanwhile, Syria's information minister denied that Assad had granted an exclusive interview to Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram al-Arabi, which reported he hit out at Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar, accusing them of arming Syrian rebels.

Omran al-Zohbi said Assad had had an informal conversation with nine Egyptian journalists and that his comments had been taken out of context.

The head of the exiled opposition Syrian National Council, Abdel Basset Sayda, warned on Friday during a visit to Rome that the conflict was nearing "a point of extreme gravity" for Syria and its neighbours.

The conflict could lead to "a catastrophic situation, with more extremism and damages also in neighbouring countries," he told reporters after meeting Italian Foreign Minister Giulio Terzi.

On the humanitarian front, Syria's ally Russia flew in almost 80 tonnes of food aid, SANA reported.

But Iraq denied permission for a North Korean aircraft to cross its airspace on its way to Syria over suspicions it was carrying arms and advisers, an official in Baghdad said.

US Vice President Joe Biden pressed Iraq's Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki in a telephone call on Friday to bar the passage of weapons shipments to Syria through Iraqi airspace, the White House said.

"The vice president and the prime minister addressed issues of regional security, including the need to prevent any state from taking advantage of Iraq's territory or air space to send weapons to Syria," it said.