Billboard with portrait of Assad and the text "Allah protects Syria" in Damascus. Photo: wiki commons.

NY Times – A day after President Bashar al-Assad said Syria was living in a “state of war,” rebels operating with increasing audacity around the capital were reported by the country’s official media on Wednesday to have stormed into a pro-government television station, killed several employees and planted explosives that destroyed studios.

But the rebels denied carrying out the attack, saying a unit of the elite Syrian Republican Guard assigned to guard the station defected and attacked other government soldiers who had remained loyal. The conflicting versions offered graphic testimony to the difficulties facing outsiders in ascertaining the true course of events in a war from which independent reporters as well as international relief and monitoring officials are effectively barred.

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