Amid deadly air raids, Assad shuffles Cabinet

DAMASCUS: Syrian warplanes raided rebel-held areas on the outskirts of Damascus yesterday in a bid to end a stalemate in the country’s bloody civil conflict, as President Bashar Assad reshuffled his Cabinet.
The violence came as efforts for a political solution appeared to founder, hours after Damascus offered talks without preconditions. The opposition had demanded that Assad’s departure be the focus of any talks.
Lebanon’s Maronite patriarch, meanwhile, announced he would visit Damascus for the enthronement of Syria’s Greek Orthodox leader, in a show of support for the country’s minority Christian community.
Air raids hit northern and eastern areas outlying the capital, amid fighting between loyalist troops and insurgents, a watchdog said.
Warplanes also hit the town of Sabineh south of Damascus, and fierce clashes broke out between rebels and troops in the embattled town of Daraya, where the army shelled insurgent positions, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
The latest clashes came after the army this week launched a major offensive against rebel zones surrounding the capital, in efforts to break a stalemate in the nearly two-year uprising.
In the north of the country, rebels stormed parts of Menegh airbase less than 25 km from the Turkish border in northern Aleppo province, the Observatory said.
The base is a key target for insurgents and has sustained continuous attacks for months.
The Observatory said at least 15 people were killed yesterday a day after it reported 136 deaths from violence nationwide.
As the violence raged, Assad changed seven ministers in his government, the official SANA news agency reported, without saying why. It said Assad had decided to split the ministry of labor and social affairs in two, and he brought in a woman, Kinda Shmat, to head the latter. Hassan Hijazi becomes labor minister.
Sleiman Abbas takes the oil and mineral resources portfolio, and Ismail Ismail becomes finance minister. Hussein Farzat gets housing and urban development, Ahmad Al-Qadri goes to agriculture and public works goes to Hussein Arnus.
Assad has announced several reshuffles since the uprising against his rule broke out nearly two years ago, the most recent in August last year.
New US Secretary of State John Kerry said yesterday in his first news conference since taking up the post that Washington was weighing its next steps on Syria.
“There’s too much killing and there’s too much violence and we obviously want to try to find a way forward,” he said.