United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said in a statement on Monday that the convoy of Lieutenant-General Babacar Gaye, head of the United Nations observer mission in Syria, was attacked by Syrian tanks and forces over the weekend.
"Yesterday the convoy of General Gaye was attacked by army tanks,” Ban told reporters in New York. "Fortunately there were no injuries by these attacks,” he commented.
Ban said that more than a dozen U.N. armored vehicles have been attacked and destroyed since the mission began deploying in Syria on April 21, 2012.
However, General Gaye arrived in Damascus last week to replace the outgoing head of the United Nations Supervision Mission in Syria, Norwegian General Robert Mood.
Meanwhile, after inspecting destruction caused by artillery bombardments of the cities of Rastan and Homs, General Gaye blamed the violence in Syria on both sides .
On the ground, fierce fighting continued Monday in Aleppo as the regime forces bombed in particular the neighborhoods and Salahuddin and Saif al-Dawla, which were seized by the Free Syrian Army fighters last week. Heavy fighting and explosions were also reported in the neighborhoods of Bab al-Hadid, and al-Zahraa al-Arqoub,Reuters news reported.
At least 115 people killed in renewed heavy fighting in Aleppo, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The official news agency SANA has in turn claimed that government forces continued to hunt down terrorists.
On it's part, Syrian TV reported that Syrian security forces have cleansed the Salahuddin and Hamdaniya neighborhoods from armed terrorists. Syrian television has been showing pictures of Aleppo people welcoming government troops as liberators.
In a related development, Anatolia news agency reported that an Arab diplomat said that Turkey has agreed with the United States on limited border intervention in northern Syria and especially in the province of Aleppo to create a buffer zone.
On the other hand, LBC news said that the Turkish army was continuing Monday, reinforcing its claims near the Syrian border with the deployment of missile batteries, tanks and infantry fighting vehicles near the border with Syria.
Source: http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/20 12/07/30/229404.html
