Syria rebels claim double blow against Assad

President Bashar al-Assad suffered a double blow on Thursday as fighters claimed to have taken over part of an air base and to have shot down a fighter bomber.

Video footage showed the burning wreckage of a Syrian air force jet in Idlib province where there has been an upsurge in attacks by the opposition targeting helicopters and aircraft. Rebel cameramen chanted "God is great" as the plane, reportedly shot down by machinegun fire, fell near the Abu Zuhour military base on the Turkish border.

"The two pilots who parachuted from the plane were captured," said Col Afif Mahmoud Suleiman, the head of the rebel military council in Idlib.

The Liwa al-Ummah brigade based in the same province said it had taken advantage of the regime's concentration of attacks on nearby Aleppo to mount a massed attack on the Taftanaz air base further east.

The brigade, which has links to fundamentalist Libyan groups, distributed pictures of at least five helicopters burning on Wednesday night and the rebels were in control of at least one section of the air base. The conquest of an air base would amount to a significant breakthrough for the Syrian rebels.

However, government forces were able to continue their bombardment of towns in other parts of Idlib, killing eight children and nine women in an attack that left at least 20 people dead.

Assad also suffered a major diplomatic blow when Egypt's new leader used a visit to Iran, the first by an Egyptian president for more than three decades, to reprimand his hosts for backing the wrong side in the Syrian civil war.

Mohammed Morsi, the Muslim Brotherhood official who became Egypt's first democratically elected president in June, aroused concern in the West that his decision to attend a meeting of the non-aligned movement in Tehran marked a shift in the country's pro-Western policy.

But he used his speech to the meeting to call on the Assad regime in Syria, Iran's closest ally, to step down. "We should all express our full support to the struggle of those who are demanding freedom and justice in Syria and translate our sympathies into a clear political vision that supports peaceful transfer to a democratic system," he said.

His backing for the opposition in Syria is not unexpected - the Muslim Brotherhood, the Assad regime's fiercest enemy, is a major presence. He made clear that he was considering the wider implications of his stance. "Our solidarity with the struggle of Syrians against an oppressive regime that has lost its legitimacy is an ethical duty, and a political and strategic necessity," he said.

As he spoke, the Syrian foreign minister, Walid al-Muallem, who was also attending, walked out. He later accused Mr Morsi of interfering in Syria's internal affairs, and "inciting bloodshed".