Over 50 killed in blasts at Syria university

RICK GLADSTONE & HWAIDA SAAD

A series of devastating explosions struck Aleppo University in Syria Tuesday, anti-government activists and Syrian state television reported, in what appeared to be a major expansion of the violent struggle for control of the largest city in the nearly two-year-old Syrian conflict. Each side blamed the other for the blasts, and activists said over 50 people were killed.

Activists also reported that violence convulsed some suburbs of Damascus, the capital, where members of the insurgent Free Syrian Army were engaged in combat with government forces in the Ain Tarma and Zamalka neighborhoods. The fighting erupted after a campaign of Syrian Air Force attacks over the past few days apparently aimed at expunging insurgents from strategic areas. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an anti-government group based in Britain, reported a death toll of 52 people and dozens of injuries in the explosions at Aleppo University, which was in a government-controlled part of Aleppo and had been conducting classes despite the mayhem and deprivation that have ravaged other parts of the city.

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