Government forces attacked rebel-held areas on the outskirts of Damascus. The al Qaeda-linked Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) claims to be buying weapons from the Free Syrian Army in Aleppo. A senior FSA commander said he welcomes ISIL as long as it doesn’t impose sharia. “Hundreds” of Pakistani jihadists are said to be in Syria. Syrian rebels holding nine Lebanese kidnapped in Aleppo in May 2012 blamed Hezbollah for a breakdown in negotiations for the release of a number of Syrian women held in regime prisons. The Red Cross delivered 5,000 food rations to the besieged Aleppo central prison.
