| Washington Post | - |
DAMASCUS, Syria - The Syrian
government on Monday blamed a rebel attack on a key power line for a
blackout that hit Damascus and much of the country's south overnight,
leaving residents cold and in the dark amid a fuel crisis that has
stranded many at ...
Power outage leaves Damascus, southern Syria in darkness; government blames rebel attack
(Andoni Lubaki/ Associated Press ) - Free Syrian Army
fighters hold their weapons during heavy clashes with government forces
in Aleppo, Syria, Sunday, Jan. 20, 2013. The revolt against President
Bashar Assad began in March 2011with peaceful protests but morphed into a
civil war that has killed more than 60,000 people, according to a
recent United Nations recent estimate.
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Meanwhile, Syria’s main opposition postponed the selection of a prime minister and the formation of a transitional government to run the country should the regime of President Bashar Assad fall, highlighting the continued failure of Assad’s opponents to unite behind a shared leader or vision nearly two years into the country’s crisis.
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A refreshing way to learn about a years-long conflictAlso Monday, Syria’s defense minister vowed the army will keep chasing rebels all over the country “until it achieves victory and thwarts the conspiracy that Syria is being subjected to.”
State-run news agency SANA says Gen. Fahd Jassem al-Freij made his comments during a tour to troops in action against rebels. Al-Freij, who took the post after his predecessor was assassinated in July, rarely makes statements.
His comments came as activists reported air raids and shelling of different areas around Syria, including a helicopter raid in the northeastern town of Tabqa that killed eight people including two women and three children, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The blackout hit residents especially hard because of rampant fuel shortages and the winter cold that pushed temperatures below freezing overnight. Getting gas requires waiting in hours-long lines at stations, and cooking fuel and diesel for portable heaters has grown scarce and expensive — forcing people to find other ways to keep warm.
“We covered ourselves from the cold in blankets because there was no diesel or electricity for the heaters,” said retired teacher Mariam Ghassan, 60. “We changed our whole lives to get organized for power cuts, but now we have no idea when the power will come or go.”
At its height, the outage engulfed all of Damascus and extended to an area at least 50 kilometers (31 miles) north to the town of Zabadani and across the southern provinces of Daraa and Sweida that abut the Jordanian border.
By midday Monday, power had returned to more than half of the capital, and Electricity Minister Imad Khamis said authorities were working to restore it in other areas.
Syria’s state news agency quoted him as saying that the outages were caused by “an armed terrorist attack on the main feed line.” The regime refers to those fighting to topple Assad as “terrorists.”
Dozens of rebel groups operate in the Damascus area, and the government did not name a specific group or give any information on where the alleged attack took place. No rebel groups claimed responsibility.
Other than a rebel incursion in July that the government quickly quashed, Damascus has yet to see the large clashes between Assad’s forces and opposition fighters that have destroyed entire neighborhoods in other Syrian cities.
