SYRIAN government troops late on Sunday repulsed an attack by an armed gang on a police school in the northern city of Aleppo.
This came after President Bashar al-Assad called on Syrians to fight religious extremists and terrorists backed by the US and UK.
SANA news agency said members of the terrorist group were killed and wounded in the late Sunday battle but did not specify the number.
Units of the Armed Forces on Sunday carried on pursuing terrorist groups in Daraya, Al-Nabek and Douma in the Damascus countryside.
A unit of the Armed Forces killed a number of terrorists near Al-Shareiah school in Daraya.
Meanwhile, units of the Engineering Forces dismantled an explosive device weighing 30kg which the terrorists were planting on the outskirts of Rowad Alsaada in Al-kournish arena in Daraya.
The Armed Forces also inflicted heavy losses on the terrorists in Douma.
And a unit clashed with a terrorist group in eastern farms in Al-Nabek, killing a number of their members and wounding others, in addition, it confiscated RPG launchers, machine guns and weapons.
Army units also carried out operations in the towns of Kafer Batna, al-Mleiha and Sha’aba, inflicting heavy losses upon terrorists and destroying terrorist hideouts along with the weapons and munitions.
Army units continued pursuing terrorists in the towns of Aqraba, Hjeira, al-Ziyabiye and Yelda, killing and injuring a number of them and dealing deadly blows to their gatherings and hideouts.
Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi expressed his country’s support for President Assad’s initiative to resolve the crisis in Syria.
Salehi reiterated Iran’s commitment to its principled stances in solving the crisis in Syria politically.
He said: ‘The main axes in President al-Assad’s initiative are based on discarding violence and terrorist acts, rejecting foreign intervention and outlining the political horizon of the country’s future based on respecting political pluralism and paving the suitable ground to run the comprehensive political process depending on the national charter.’
He added that the initiative also emphasises drafting a new constitution, holding parliamentary elections and forming a new government.
Echoing the US, EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said in a statement: ‘We maintain our position that Assad has to step aside and allow for a political transition.’
UK Foreign Secretary William Hague lamely said ‘the empty promises of reform fool no-one’.
Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu was also shaken by Assad’s speech last Sunday.
