Syria To Hold Presidential Elections on June 3

Syria’s parliament speaker has announced that the country will hold long-rumored presidential elections on June 3. State television said the announcement came hours after mortar shells struck 320 feet from the parliament building in central Damascus, killing five people.

“Assad has been widely expected to seek another seven-year term in office despite the uprising against his rule,” writes the Associated Press. “Candidates seeking to run for president can register their candidacy from Tuesday, April 22, until May 1.

“Rebels said the mortars that hit near the parliament on Monday were a message to Assad that he and his supporters are not safe… The election announcement reflected the determination of the Assad government to prevail on the political scene and its resurgent confidence, given the momentum of the war, which has lately seen significant advances by the pro-Assad forces.”

Air Strikes Kill Dozens in Aleppo

Reuters reports that dozens have been killed in air strikes on Aleppo, Syria’s largest city, the casualties including 29 people in a single neighborhood. Government forces have waged a barrel bomb offensive against Aleppo since the end of last year; aid agencies have said that the resulting stream of refugees out of the city has been one of the largest since the start of the conflict.

“The opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said air strikes killed 29 people on Sunday, including women and children, in the southern Al-Ferdous district of Aleppo, a city that was once Syria’s largest and a major commercial hub.

“Another 14 people were killed in the Baeedeen neighborhood in ‘barrel bomb’ attacks – strikes in which helicopters drop highly destructive improvised explosives – the group said. A further five died in barrel bomb attacks in the village of Tlajabin.”

Damascus Residents Recall a Sectarian Tolerance Gone By

Patrick McDonnell of the Los Angeles Times reports from the Bab Touma area of Damascus as sectarian tensions take center stage.

“Christian worshipers in Bab Touma were on edge Friday after a mortar attack this week that struck the yard of a nearby Christian school, killing a 10-year-old boy and injuring dozens of children. A banner hung on the neighborhood’s Roman-era stone gate memorialized the dead boy, Sinar Matanyos, as a ‘victim of the rotten crime they called revolution.’

“Over and over, individual Syrians insist to visitors that they never knew the faith of their closest friends. Now, however, one’s sect has become a defining trait, something that can mean life or death, detention or freedom.

“One young banker here says he lets his mostly Christian co-workers think he is a Christian, though he is in fact a Sunni Muslim. It eases suspicion, he explains.”

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