General killed; jet fighters bomb Damascus

Syrian TV said rebels killed an air force leader in Damascus, as activists said Assad regime jet fighters bombed targets in the capital for the first time. State television said Gen. Abdullah Mahmoud al-Khalidi, one of the military's top aviation experts, was shot dead by "armed terrorists" in Damascus's Rukn al-Din neighborhood late Monday. The regime calls rebels terrorists and often characterizes the uprising as part of an Israeli plot. The Free Syrian Army, Syria's main the main armed opposition group, had no immediate comment on the state TV report. Al-Jazeera said it was possible regime agents assassinated Khalidi to keep him from defecting. The Qatari network quoted unidentified activists as saying "the regime got rid of him before he does that." In July rebel bombers killed Syria's defense minister, deputy defense minister and assistant vice president as the officials met in a Damascus safe house. The bombing was widely viewed as the biggest single blow to President Bashar Assad's inner circle since the uprising against him began in March 2011. Syrian state TV said Khalidi's killing was "part of [the opposition's] campaign to target national personalities and scientists." The day after the Damascus assassination, Syrian jet fighters bombed targets in Damascus for the first time, activists said. The Syrian military previously used helicopter gunships. The expansion of aerial bombardments also came a day after the official end of a four-day cease-fire that was continually violated by both sides, with each side accusing the other of undermining it. The opposition Local Coordination Committees of Syria said 72 people were killed in Damascus and its suburbs Tuesday and 163 people, including 13 children and seven women, were killed across the country. There was no way of corroborating the casualty figures. Many of the dead in the Damascus area were killed in Syrian regime airstrikes in Douma, the opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. Douma is a flash-point city 6 miles northeast of Damascus that has been under FSA control since Oct. 18. The suburban village of Jobar, less than a mile northeast of Damascus's old city walls, was bombed four times by a Syrian jet fighter, the Syrian Observatory said. Jobar is a strong Jewish community that includes a 2,000-year-old synagogue built in commemoration of the biblical prophet Elijah.