By Al Arabiya with agencies
A helicopter crashed in the town of Douma east of the Syrian capital Damascus on Thursday, Syrian state television said.
It gave no details. Rebel fighters seeking to overthrow Bashar al-Assad have increasingly attacked planes and helicopters which the Syrian president has used to crush opposition strongholds, bringing down a helicopter on the outskirts of Damascus on August 27.
Early September, the Free Syrian Army claimed that it had downed two Syrian government MiG jets in Abu al-Dhuhour, an area in the northwestern province of Idlib.
On the ground, Syrian rebels seized a crossing on the Turkish border Wednesday, the fourth they have captured in recent months.
Turkish media footage showed rebel fighters pulling down the regime flag at a crossing on the main highway between the city of Raqa in northeastern Syria and the Turkish city of Sanliurfa.
Turkey’s Anatolia news agency reported that the rebels tore down Assad’s pictures to celebrate the capture, but an opposition activist in Raqa said that fighting was still raging as government troops tried to recapture the crossing.
Meanwhile, rebels withdrew from three southern districts of Damascus after weeks of heavy combat and shelling, while the army bombarded parts of the capital, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
The bodies of 11 people were found in the Jobar district of Damascus, some of them belonging to people who had been detained by security forces, the Britain-based Observatory said, adding that nationwide at least 68 people were killed in violence on Wednesday, 50 of them civilians.
A network of activists, the Syrian Revolution General Commission (SRGC), described the Al-Hajar al-Aswad, Qadam and Assali districts, as well as the Yarmuk Palestinian refugee camp, as “disaster areas.”
