Syrian army arrests Turkish, Saudi officers in Aleppo

The Syrian army has arrested a group of Turkish and Saudi officers in Syria’s northwestern city of Aleppo, the state TV says.

The officers were arrested on Monday amid ongoing clashes between government troops and foreign-sponsored terrorists in the city.

The UK newspaper Guardian reported on June 22 that the Saudi regime would pay the salary of the members of the terrorist Free Syrian Army to encourage “mass defections from the military and… pressure” the Damascus government.

On June 21, the New York Times reported that a group of CIA officers are operating secretly in southern Turkey and that the agents are helping the anti-Syria governments decide which gangs inside the Arab country will receive arms to fight the Syrian government.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad told the Turkish Cumhuriyet daily in an interview in early July that Turkey “has supplied all logistic support to the terrorists who have killed our people.”

Meanwhile, the Syrian media said on Monday an explosion rocked the third floor of the Syrian television headquarters in the capital, Damascus, causing several casualties.

On July 18, a bomb attack on the headquarters of the National Security Bureau in Damascus killed Syrian Defense Minister Dawoud Rajiha, Deputy Defense Minister Assef Shawkat, and Assistant Vice President Hassan Turkmani. National Security Bureau chief Hisham Bakhtiar also died of wounds sustained in the attack two days later.

The official Syrian news agency, SANA, said on June 27 that three staff members of the Al-Ikhbariya satellite television channel in Syria and four guards were killed in a “terrorist attack” on the headquarters of the television in Damascus.