Aleppo rebels say regime using Egyptian rockets

FROM EGYPT WITH LOVE: “A gift from our Egyptian brothers,” says a rebel in the al-Sokhour neighborhood of Idlib province on Wednesday, holding an unexploded rocket.

The logo and writing at the base of the rocket indicate that it was made by the Arab Manufacturing Authority’s Saqr Factory for Advanced Weapons, located in Cairo. “Thank God it didn’t explode,” the fighter says of the weapon, which fell on al-Sakhour, a rebel-controlled neighborhood in northeast Aleppo.

For its part, the Arab Manufacturing Body denied Wednesday having provided the Syrian government with weaponry, telling Egyptian newspaper al-Wafid that it “has not sold any of its products to Syria in the last 20 years.”

This is not the first time that Egyptian shells have been seen in Syria. Opposition fighters published a video last September showing a similar unexploded rocket in the city of al-Mouhsin in Syria’s eastern Deir e-Zor province.

Relations between Damascus and Cairo have been tumultuous since the start of Syria’s civil war in 2013. Egypt’s then-President Mohammad Morsi generally took a hard line toward Bashar al-Assad’s government, but the two countries have restored their diplomatic relations since Morsi’s deposal ushered in a new period of military rule in Cairo.

The Syrian government has been heavily bombarding opposition-controlled neighborhoods of Aleppo for nearly two months, conducting multiple air raids Thursday on the al-Sha’ar neighborhood near a-Sakhour, leaving multiple residents dead or injured, according to pro-opposition Halab Today. Meanwhile, pro-opposition daily al-Watan reported that “terrorists had temporarily disabled electricity throughout Aleppo after targeting a major electrical plant.

The Egyptian government, the rebel added, “is slaughtering us, together with the [Syrian] regime.”

Video courtesy of Sham News Network.

-March 6, 2014

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