Syrian government forces demolished the northern Syrian town of Maarat al-Noaman, which had been taken over by rebels last week. The New York Times described the scene as a “horror”: “Men stumbled over rubble, carrying single bones nearly shorn of flesh and shredded body parts barely identifiable as human… . A man in a baseball cap pointed out crumpled buildings that, he said, crushed women, children and elderly people sheltering there. An infant in a pink shirt lay motionless.” Meanwhile, international calls for a truce between the Assad regime and opposition forces intensified, with Turkey, Germany, and the Arab League urging both sides to suspend the civil war, which has killed at least 33,000 people since March 2011. The truce would be timed to coincide with the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, and would begin next Friday.

[Photo: FreedomHouse / Flickr]