Syria conflict: Helicopter crashes near Damascus - state TV

 

There was further heavy fighting in Damascus on Wednesday

A helicopter has crashed near the Syrian capital, Damascus, Syrian state television has said.

The helicopter was said to have crashed close to Douma, a suburb east of Damascus.
At the end of August, rebels said they shot down a helicopter on the outskirts of Damascus.
The government has increasingly been using helicopters and other aircraft in its fight against the rebellion which started last year.
Rebel fighters have said they shot down the helicopter, says the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based opposition activist group.
In the Dutch capital, The Hague, a group of financial experts, foreign diplomats and Syrian defectors is meeting to look for new economic ways of weakening Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's grip on power.
The group, called the Friends of Syria, is discussing how to make sanctions on the Syrian government more effective and how to track down the Assad government's hidden financial assets.
Dutch Foreign Minister Uri Rosenthal at the meeting said that one of the problems was that not all countries implemented sanctions on Syria.
On Wednesday, there was further heavy fighting in Damascus and the northern city of Aleppo.
Amnesty International warned that indiscriminate air and artillery strikes were causing a dramatic rise in civilian casualties in Idlib and Hama.
From BBC