LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - The organizations says their findings were based on "first-hand field investigations carried out in the first half of September."

Governmental attacks have reportedly killed "166 civilians, including 48 children and 20 women, and injured hundreds in 26 towns and villages" in the northwestern regions of Idlib, Jabal al-Zawiya and the northern Hama area.

Amnesty International's Donatella Rovera says that she personally witnessed "evidence of indiscriminate air bombardment and artillery strikes" in all of the 26 towns and villages she visited in northern Syria.

Speaking from neighboring Turkey, Rovera says that the "use by [Syrian] government forces of what are essentially battlefield weapons cannot be aimed at specific targets but that fall randomly over civilian residential areas is what has made the situation so much worse over the last six or seven weeks.

"The number of civilians that have been killed or injured has increased dramatically," Rovera said.

Syrian rebels in the meantime have seized control of a border crossing on the frontier with Turkey, pulling down the Syrian flag.
 
Syrians on the Turkish side of the border were celebrating and yelling, "I am a free Syrian!" People have been reportedly been moving freely across the border, crawling under barbed wire, according to a reporter from the Associated Press.

There were fierce clashes as rebels and regime forces fought for control of the Tal Abyad crossing.

Syria's rebels control several other border crossings into Turkey. The incident is thought to be the first time they have tried to take the border area in the northern province of Raqqa.

An opposition activist in the Tadamon neighborhood in Damascus told Al Jazeera that rebel fighters had withdrawn from three areas of the capital due to what he said was a "lack of ammunition."

Activist Abu Qais al-Shami says that the areas Hajar al-Asswad, al-Qadam and Asseil were also under a tight Syrian army siege as they were struck by air bombardment and tank shelling.

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