Syrian gunmen attack pro-government TV station

BEIRUT – Gunmen have broken through the gates of a pro-government Syrian TV channel headquarters, bombing buildings and shooting dead three employees, state media said, in one of the boldest attacks yet on a symbol of the state.

President Bashar al-Assad declared late on Tuesday that his country was at war and Wednesday’s attack on Ikhbariya’s offices – located 20 km south of the capital – as well as overnight fighting on the outskirts of Damascus show that 16 months of violence is now rapidly encroaching on the capital.

Footage aired on Ikhbariya, which resumed broadcasting shortly after the attack, showed bullet holes pockmarked a two-storey concrete building and pools of blood on the floor. One building made of corrugated iron had been almost completely destroyed and flames licked at the metal frame.

Opposition forces and Syrian army units, meanwhile, have engaged in deadly combat around elite Republican Guard posts in the suburbs of Damascus on Tuesday, as 116 people were killed across the country, a monitoring group said.
 
Hours earlier, President Bashar al-Assad said Syria was in “a real state of war” and US intelligence officials predicted a long, drawn-out struggle.