| New York Times | - |
BEIRUT, Lebanon - A hotel used by Syrian
government troops in the northern city of Aleppo was leveled by a huge
explosion on Thursday, after Islamic militants tunneled underneath the
building and planted explosives linked to remote detonators ...
Footage of Hotel Bombing in Aleppo
Video from Shaam News Network, an anti-Assad
group in Syria, showed a rebel-claimed bombing in Aleppo that leveled a
hotel that government troops used as a military base, near the city’s
ancient citadel.
Credit
BEIRUT,
Lebanon — A hotel used by Syrian government troops in the northern city
of Aleppo was leveled by a huge explosion on Thursday, after Islamic
militants tunneled underneath the building and planted explosives linked
to remote detonators, activist groups and state media reported.
There
was no immediate word on casualties. Video footage whose authenticity
could not immediately be confirmed showed huge clouds of gray smoke
blotting out the Aleppo skyline.
The
Islamic Front, one of the biggest insurgent groups in Syria, claimed
responsibility for the blast, saying the attack was a response to the
mass killing of unarmed civilians in Aleppo. The group, a coalition of
insurgents including former Free Syrian Army fighters and members of
harder-core Islamist factions, said the attack was a prelude to a
“large-scale operation” meant to secure territorial gains.
The
state news agency, SANA, said the attack had rocked the Old City area
of Aleppo and destroyed historical sites there. The attackers blew up
tunnels they dug under archaeological buildings, SANA said.
The
destroyed hotel was seen in Internet images as a pale stone building in
traditional style with palm trees outside. State television identified
it as the Carlton, which was built as a hospital in the era of Ottoman
rule before World War I and later renovated and reopened as a hotel,
facing the historic citadel in Aleppo. Government forces had been
billeted there for two years.
The
Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition group that is based
in Britain and collects information from contacts inside Syria, said
Islamist forces had tunneled under the hotel from areas held by rebels
seeking the overthrow of President Bashar al-Assad.
Aleppo,
the country’s largest city, has been carved into a checkerboard of
areas held by one side or the other as the Syrian civil war has
intensified. Government forces have been bombing rebel areas from the
air, while the rebels have detonated car bombs and fired mortar rounds
into government-held districts.
The attack in Aleppo came a day after rebels in the city of Homs began evacuating positions
they had held since the revolt against Mr. Assad took root in 2011. The
evacuation was seen as a bitter defeat and emotional blow for
antigovernment forces there, but it was not clear whether the bomb in
Aleppo was intended as a direct response.
Homs
is Syria’s third-largest city, and was one of the first where peaceful
protests turned to armed combat; it was also among the first to
experience indiscriminate bombing by government forces, a bellwether for
the nation’s descent into turmoil.
Talal
Barazi, the provincial governor in Homs, said 80 percent of the rebel
fighters had left their positions in the city center under a truce, and
the rest were scheduled to leave on Thursday, Reuters reported.
Rebels
tried once before this year to tunnel under the hotel in Aleppo and
blow it up. That attack did damage but did not force government troops
to abandon the building.
Tamam,
an activist from Aleppo now living in Turkey who did not give his
surname for fear of reprisals, said in an interview that government
forces had turned the hotel into a military base where snipers and
mortar crews could attack much of the city’s old quarter.
Government
supporters in Aleppo speculated in postings on Facebook that the rebels
detonated two tunnels packed with explosives on Thursday, one under the
hotel and the other in a different neighborhood.
The
tactic of tunneling under opponents’ fortifications has nearly a
900-year pedigree in Aleppo. When Crusaders besieged a Muslim-held
castle there in 1131, the premature collapse of a siege tunnel fatally
injured their leader, Count Joscelin I of Edessa.
In
video images posted on YouTube, the Islamic Front showed what it said
was a similar attack this week on a government outpost in Idlib,
southwest of Aleppo. The images showed a huge blast in which the Islamic
Front said 35 government soldiers had died.
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