Syrian Rebels Sruggle To Maintain Ground In Aleppo
KRISTIE LU STOUT, HOST: I'm Kristie Lu Stout in Hong Kong. And welcome to News Stream, where news and technology meet. We begin in Syria. We look at life inside Syria's one time commercial capital. London bids a spectacular farewell to the Olympic games. And Mitt Romney has his running mate. A look at what Paul Ryan brings to the Republican ticket. Now Syrian activists report government forces have committed a massacre in the capital of Damascus. They say at least 10 people were publicly executed in a suburb there. And at least 33 people have been killed nationwide already on Monday. Now this follows Sunday's reports of heavy fighting in the besieged city of Homs. An opposition group says that government troops executed 10 men there. The U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says the United States will develop contingency plans with its Turkish allies in the event the Syrian government collapses. Now civilians have been pinned down by snipers, or caught in the crossfire with nowhere to go. And with more, Ben Wedeman joins us now live from northern Syria. And Ben, tell us what have you seen?</s>BEN WEDEMAN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Kristie, what we saw in Aleppo was that the government forces are increasingly making advances into the areas that until just a few days ago were controlled by the Free Syrian Army and other rebel groups. At this point all communications to Aleppo have been cut. And for those few civilians who remain in the areas close to the front lines, the situation is becoming increasingly dire.</s>WEDEMAN: He wasn't a fighter or a revolutionary. He didn't live by the gun. But 45 year old Hassan (ph), a shopkeeper, died from an unseen sniper's bullet. Neighbors and fighters had to hoist his body over walls between apartment buildings in the back streets of Aleppo's Mushud (ph) neighborhood to avoid the snipers. His wife was by his side when the bullet ripped through his head. They had come to help relatives pinned down by the violence to escape to safer ground. The line between life and death in Aleppo is perilously thin. Just one block away I met Hanadi (ph) who insists she and her family of six will not leave. I ask her where the front line is. But she brushes off the question saying she's become accustomed to the shelling. Her son, one-and-a-half year old Abdel Renni (ph) seems confused and squeezes my hand tightly. A two minute walk down the street, an apartment building was hit in an air strike. This building, or rather what's left of this building which really isn't much, is in an area where civilians are still living. And of course among the ruins we found a French book and somebody is studying English, the life of William Shakespeare. The residents say two bodies remain buried inside. Riad (ph), a self described unarmed activist says regime forces don't care if they kill 100, 200, 1,000 or 2,000 civilians if they destroy two or three or four buildings. A rocket slammed into another building in the nearby Sikari (ph) district, wounding two, raining rubble into the street. All the while, government helicopters hover menacingly overhead and jets drop bombs on rebel controlled neighborhoods. The trappings of daily life in the city under siege have disappeared. Even the simple act of crossing the street requires a strong heart and fast feet. A sniper's bullet is just a crack away.</s>WEDEMAN: And Kristie, as far as the fighters go, they say they are running low on ammunition. They complain that despite all the reports or arms coming in from Turkey and elsewhere, many of them say they've seen nothing. They've received nothing. And at this point they don't know how much longer they can fight against a regime that seems to have all the weapons that it needs -- Kristie.</s>LU STOUT: And that's the crux of where this battle for Syria is. I mean, just then we saw the video you and your team caught on camera a government jet dropping a bomb on rebel held territory. Al-Assad's troops, they have jets. They have military helicopters, tanks. The rebels are out equipped as you mentioned and their ammunition is not coming in. How have they been able to manage to hold the territory that they have in Aleppo and to fend of Syrian troops?</s>WEDEMAN: Well, as far as how they do it but weapons they've got. They've got basically assault rifles and some rocket propelled grenades. They say most of them they've either bought on the open market, or they've been able to take from government troops. But by and large they don't really have much. Their only real advantage is the fact that they know the territory very well and they know that their backs are to the wall. This is a war where neither side really seems to take prisoners. There's very little mercy on the battlefield. And they know that if they fall into government hands they're dead -- Kristie.</s>LU STOUT: And the strength of al-Assad's troops from what you've seen reporting inside Syria all week, do you think Syria still has the massive force to crush the rebels? I mean, just how strong, how vulnerable is the army of Bashar al-Assad?</s>WEDEMAN: What we saw in Aleppo, Kristie, is that the rebels are definitely on the defensive. The Bashar al-Assad regime clearly has much more in the way of heavy weaponry. What the problems they do have is morale of the ordinary soldiers who aren't members of the Alawite sect of the Bashar al-Assad, but Sunni Muslims and others whose hearts really aren't in the battle. In fact we had an opportunity to speak with three soldiers who had defected that very day. And they said there's a system of discrimination within the army. The Alawites seem to get all the good positions, all the sort of the perks of the job, the Sunnis get very little. And there is a lot of resentment among the ranks. The question is do they have the power to somehow eliminate their officers and push them aside? At this point it doesn't look like it. So it does seem that the army, the Syrian army, is still very much in control and has the upper hand at the moment -- Kristie.</s>LU STOUT: But divisions that could potentially make it very, very vulnerable. Ben Wedeman joining us live from northern Syria. Thank you very much indeed for that. Now it is a conflict that has been at the forefront of Egyptian politics since the country's revolution. The role of the military and civilians. And now that has taken a dramatic turn. Now President Mohammed Morsi, in the words of a spokesman, sent to retirement two key members of the armed forces. Now that includes the defense minister who was in power after the removal of former leader Hosni Mubarak. And remember this comes only one month after the military and Morsi clashed over his attempt to recall the Egyptian parliament. Now journalist Ian Lee has been following developments and he joins us live from Cairo. And Ian, how significant is Morsi's move in this civil- military balance of power there in Egypt?</s>IAN LEE, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kristie it's probably the most significant move we've seen so far. He essentially took power from who is arguably the most powerful man in Egypt, Field Marshall Tantawi. Now he has all the power. He has -- other that presidential power, he has power of the legislature. He also has a lot of influence now over the body that is currently writing Egypt's new constitution. So that give shim a lot of power right there. And also I want to point out that after -- even earlier before yesterday's announcement when we saw a lot of major generals go, earlier last week we saw the head of intelligence go. We saw the head of the military police and the governor of North Sinai. It looks like he's really cleaning house right now of people who were associated with Mubarak's regime and trying to put in new people in those top positions, Kristie.</s>LU STOUT: Yeah. And how are Egyptians reacting to these dramatic maneuverings by Mohammed Morsi. Is it welcomed, or are there worries about how much power he will have as president?</s>LEE: Well, right now Egypt is in a state of shock. People are still trying to figure out what all this means. But the Muslim Brotherhood last night called its supporters to go down to Tahrir Square and show its support. But we also saw supporters of the military out in the street protesting Mohammed Morsi's move. And I think there's a date that I want to throw out there that will be important. It's August 24th. There's been a lot of calls for people to come out and protest against the Muslim Brotherhood and against Moahmmed Moris on this date. And after yesterday's announcement we saw more political parties joining that call. So there's definitely been some backlash to yesterday's move. August 24th is next Friday. We'll be looking for the reaction response then. And as the civil-military balance of power is shifting so dramatically this day in Egypt we know that a military operation is underway in the Sinai peninsula. Ian, what's the latest from there?</s>LEE: Well, what we're hearing out of the Sinai peninsula right now is that the militants are trying to have had meetings. They're going to -- a secret meeting. And they're going to try to respond to a military operation that happened earlier which killed five militants. The militants also assassinated a tribal leader and his son who was holding a meeting on how -- to talk about how the Bedouins can support the government. And we were just there a few days ago. And we went to a meeting which had the ministry of interior, the minister along with the tribal leaders trying to talk about how they can secure Sinai and get the Bedouins on board to help securing that, but the militants seem very determined to keep up their operations against the military and against the government in Sinai.</s>LU STOUT: All right, Ian Lee reporting live for us from Cairo. Thank you. Now thousands of Iranians are taking shelter in makeshift homes in the country's north after a double earthquake hit the region on Saturday. The 6.4 and 6.3 magnitude quakes raised villages to the northeast of Tabriz, that's Iran's fourth largest city. Now Iran's press tv agency, citing the country's health ministry, reports at least 306 people have been killed, more than 3,000 injured. And officials have expressed concern about the possible outbreak of disease. You're watching News Stream. And coming up, getting to know the running mates. Mitt Romney's pick for vice president steps into the spotlight. And fireworks and rock music bring the London Olympics to a spectacular close. We look back at the highlights and ahead to Rio 2016. And sporting achievement of another kind for Great Britain at the U.S. PGA championship.