Syrian warplanes strike rebel posts

BEIRUT -- Syrian warplanes struck rebel positions near a besieged military air base and other rebel-held areas in the country's north Tuesday as regime forces stepped up attacks against opposition fighters in the key province of Aleppo, activists said.

Rebels fighting to topple President Bashar Assad have for months been trying to take Kweiras and two other military air bases nearby without success. The government has recently gone on the offensive in the province and in areas in the country's heartland to recapture rebel-held territory.

Activists said warplanes also struck targets in the villages of Atareb and Kfar Hamra in Aleppo province, and troops clashed with rebels inside the provincial capital of the same name. There were no immediate reports of casualties.

The regime has gone on the offensive in Homs and Aleppo, the country's largest city, to build on the momentum from its victory at the strategic town of Qusair earlier this month.

The violence also continued to spill over the border. Heavy clashes erupted between pro-Hezbollah gunmen and followers of a radical Sunni cleric in southern Lebanon, killing two people, officials said.

The clashes that broke out in an eastern suburb of Sidon erupted after several people threw stones and shattered windows in a car belonging to Amjad al-Assir, the brother of Hezbollah critic and hard-line cleric Sheik Ahmad al-Assir, the officials said.

A statement from al-Assir's office said he was not driving it at the time. Al-Assir then gave Hezbollah a one week ultimatum to vacate apartments occupied by the group's supporters in the mostly Sunni city as clashes broke out with gunmen. -- AP