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DALLAS (AP) — The father of an American journalist working in volatile regions of Syria said his son hasn't been in contact with his editors or his family in Texas in more than a week, but he's hopeful his son will turn up safe.

Austin Tice, a former Marine, has reported for The Washington Post, McClatchy Newspapers and other media outlets from the Middle Eastern country, where he recently spent time with rebel fighters. He was expected back in the U.S. in mid-August.

"It's not uncommon for various journalists moving in and about Syria to be out of communication. We're very hopeful that that is what is happening," his father, Marc Tice, told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from his home in Houston late Thursday.

The Washington Post reported that the 31-year-old Tice spent time with rebel fighters in the north after entering Syria from Turkey in May. He then traveled to Damascus, where he was one of the few Western journalists reporting from the capital.

His father said he knows nothing more of the situation beyond what is being reported by the media outlets, but he believes his son's military training will help him. He said his last contact with his son was on Aug. 12.

"It was an ordinary email exchange. There wasn't anything unusual or concerning about the exchange. But we all know the level of risk he faces," he said. "He was conscious of the risk and willing to take that risk."

Austin Tice was living in Washington before heading overseas, and had been attending law school at Georgetown University between deployments and his latest reporting trip, his father said.

Washington Post and McClatchy executives said they were deeply concerned about Tice and hailed his reporting. Both organizations said they were working with the U.S. State Department and other news outlets to find him.

"We're focused intensively on trying to ascertain his whereabouts and ensure his safe return," Post executive editor Marcus Brauchli said in a statement. Anders Gyllenhaal, McClatchy vice president for news, added: "Journalists like Austin from all over the world risk their lives every day to cover the news."

U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said the agency was working to get more information on Tice's welfare and whereabouts thanks to the help of the Czech Embassy, which represents U.S. interests in Syria.

"We have long expressed concern about the safety for journalists in Syria," she said in a statement. "We strongly urge all sides to ensure the safety of journalists in Syria."

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Associated Press writers Erin Gartner in Chicago and Jay Arnold in Washington contributed to this report.

BEIRUT (AP) — Syrian troops launched a broad ground assault Wednesday on rebel-held areas of the besieged city of Aleppo and activists reported clashes as opposition forces fought back in a battle that has raged for more than two weeks.

The official SANA news agency claimed regime forces have fully regained control on Salaheddine — the main rebel stronghold in the northern city. It said the military inflicted heavy losses upon "armed terrorist groups," the government's catchall term for its opponents.

But Rami Abdul-Rahman, the director of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said troops met resistance in the offensive.

President Bashar Assad's regime has suffered a series of setbacks over the past month that point to mounting chaos in the country after a 17-month-uprising that has morphed into civil war. Four senior security officials were assassinated in Damascus, there have been a string of high-level defections including the prime minister this week, and government forces have struggled to put down rebel challenges in Damascus and Aleppo.

The regime has far more powerful weapons than the rebels and still has a firm grip on much of the country.

Aleppo, the largest city in Syria and its commercial center, holds great symbolic and strategic importance. Some 40 kilometers (25 miles) from the Turkish border, it has been a pillar of regime support during the uprising. An opposition victory there would allow easier access for weapons and fighters from Turkey, where many rebels are based.

There has been a marked increase in the number of refugees fleeing to Turkey in the past two days as Aleppo-based activists reported fresh clashes. Intense government bombardment of the Syrian town of Tal Rafaat closer to the border also sent scores of people spilling into Turkey for safety, the activists said.

Some 2,400 people crossed into Turkey overnight to escape the escalating violence, Turkey's state-run news agency reported Wednesday. Some 50,000 Syrians have now found refuge in Turkey. Even more refugees have crossed into Jordan and Lebanon.

"Unfortunately, there is a human tragedy going on in Syria," Turkey's Deputy Prime Minister Ali Babacan said Wednesday, keeping up Turkey's criticism of the violence.

The regime has been hit by a wave of defections, most recently by Prime Minister Riad Hijab. On Wednesday, Jordan's information minister said Hijab is in the kingdom, ending speculation about his whereabouts. Sameeh Maaytah said Hijab "entered Jordan in the early hours of dawn today along with several members of his family." Maaytah spoke to the state Petra News Agency. He did not elaborate.

A Jordanian government official said earlier this week that Hijab had defected and fled to the kingdom. But Hijab never appeared in public, raising questions over his whereabouts in the ensuing days.

Assad has been forced to rely on a shrinking list of allies, including Iran. Senior Iranian envoy Saeed Jalili visited Damascus on Tuesday, appearing with Assad in a show of solidarity.

The rebels have blasted Iran's influence in the country and over the weekend, rebel forces intercepted a bus carrying 48 Iranians and kidnapped them. Rebels claimed the men are military personnel, including some members of Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guard, who were on a "reconnaissance mission" to help Assad's crackdown on the uprising.

Iran initially said the 48 were pilgrims visiting a Shiite shrine in Damascus. The Iranian foreign minister said Wednesday that some of the kidnapped Iranians are retired members of the army and Revolutionary Guard.

"The Islamic Republic of Iran has announced openly that some of the pilgrims kidnapped are retired members of the Guard and the Army," Iran's official IRNA news agency quoted Salehi as saying during a visit to Turkey.

"If these people had been dispatched to Syria for specific purposes, then how did they drive in a normal bus without equipment and holding their identification cards?" Salehi asked.

Iran's Revolutionary Guard is the nation's largest military force.

AP writers Suzan Fraser in Ankara, Turkey, Jamal Halaby in Amman, Jordan, and Ali Akbar Dareini in Tehran contributed to this report.

BEIRUT (AP) — Armed Shiite clansmen in Lebanon said Wednesday they had captured more than 20 Syrians and will hold them until one of their relatives seized by rebels inside Syria is freed. The tensions were a stark reminder of how easily Syria's civil war could spill over to neighboring states.

In Geneva, a U.N. investigation said Syrian President Bashar Assad's forces and pro-government militiamen were responsible for war crimes during a May bloodbath in the village of Houla that killed more than 100 civilians, nearly half of them children. It also said rebels were blamed for war crimes in at least three other killings.

The report by the U.N. Human Rights Council said the scale of the Houla carnage indicated "involvement at the highest levels" of Syria's military and government. It is first time the U.N. has described events in Syria's civil war as war crimes and could be used in possible future prosecution against Assad or others. The council also said the conflict is moving in increasingly "brutal" directions on both sides.

As the fighting deepens, so do the fears of it triggering unrest in fragile Lebanon, which is deeply divided between supporters and opponents of President Bashar Assad's regime. The country, which was devastated by its own 15-year civil war that Syria was deeply involved in, has witnessed clashes between pro- and anti-Syrian groups over the past months, mostly in the northern city of Tripoli.

Syrian rebels have adopted a new tactic recently of seizing prisoners from countries or foreign groups allied with the regime to rattle Assad and his allies outside the country. In May, Syrian rebels captured 11 Lebanese Shiites shortly after they crossed from Turkey on their way to Lebanon. Earlier this month, rebels abducted 48 Iranians near the capital Damascus.

The Syrian rebels are predominantly Sunni whereas Assad and his inner circle are dominated by Alawites, an offshoot of Shiite Islam.

The Lebanese prisoner in Syria, Hassane Salim al-Mikdad, appeared in a video released by rebels over the past few days. He said he is a member of Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite militant group allied with predominantly Shiite Iran and with Syria. The captive, who appeared to have bruises on his face, said he was sent to Syria to fight with Assad regime forces.

Hezbollah denied al-Mikdad is a member and his family claimed he has been living in Syria for more than a year.

Abu Ali al-Mikdad, a relative, told reporters in Beirut Wednesday that his Shiite clan has abducted "more than 20 Syrians" including a senior member of the rebel Free Syrian Army (FSA). Later, the clan said it also had seized a Turkish man, and Lebanese state TV displayed a Turkish passport provided by the al-Mikdad family. Turkey is a strong backer of the Syrian rebels.

The Beirut-based TV station Al-Mayadeen aired a video purporting to show two of the abducted Syrians who said they are members of the FSA. One of them identified himself as Capt. Mohammed and said his job was to supply the FSA with arms and fighters.

"I call them (FSA) upon to free the prisoners they are holding because they are innocent," said one of the two captured men shown on TV who identified himself as Maher Hassan Rabih.

The al-Mikdad family is a powerful Shiite Muslim clan that originally comes from the eastern Bekaa Valley, an area where state control is somewhat tenuous. Like most tribes in this area, they have their own armed elements.

Activists reported shelling and clashes in the northern city of Aleppo, Syria's largest, where rebels took over several neighborhoods over the past weeks. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the rebels were trying to take over a key dam in the northern town of Manbij, just east of Aleppo. It added that the army was using helicopter gunships in the battles near the dam on the strategic Euphrates River.

In the northern town of Azaz — where the 11 Lebanese had been held — at least two air strikes leveled dozens of buildings. Associated Press journalists saw at least seven bodies pulled from the rubble. Activists drove some of the wounded to the nearby Turkish border for treatment.

Some rescuers brought a generator and electric saw to cut through steel reinforcement bars in the concrete. Nearby, a woman sat on a pile of bricks that was once her home, cradling a baby.

U.S.-based Human Rights Watch said Syrian government fighter planes fired rockets that struck the main emergency hospital in an opposition-controlled area of Aleppo a day earlier, wounding two civilians and causing significant damage. Human Rights Watch said its members visited the damaged hospital.

The Local Coordination Committees, another activist group said there was also fighting near a border crossing with Turkey that the rebels had captured last month. A local official in the Turkish border town of Reyhanli said clashes could be heard coming from the region on Tuesday but that the situation had calmed by Wednesday morning. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.

Turkey's state-run Anadolu news agency said 757 Syrians fled their country and streamed into Turkey on Wednesday.

Activists say more than 20,000 people have been killed since the start of Syria's revolt, inspired by other Arab Spring uprisings against autocratic regimes in the region. The conflict has slowly morphed into a full blown civil war.

The LCC reported violence in the eastern province of Deir el-Zour, northwestern region of Idlib, Daraa to the south and in suburbs of the capital Damascus.

In Damascus, a bomb attached to a fuel truck exploded Wednesday outside a hotel where U.N. observers are staying, wounding at least three people, Syrian state TV reported. Activists also reported clashes in different parts of Syria, including clashes with rebels near the government headquarters and the Iranian embassy both in Damascus.

Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad toured the area of the blast and said none of the U.N. staff was hurt. The explosion occurred as U.N. humanitarian chief Valerie Amos was in the Syrian capital but her team is believed to be staying at a different hotel.

The blast was the latest in a series of explosions that have hit Damascus in the past months as clashes between government troops and rebels reached the capital, which had been relatively quiet since the uprising against Assad erupted in March last year.

Wednesday's explosion went off about 300 meters (yards) from the military command. According to an Associated Press reporter at the scene, the blast was inside the parking lot of a military compound. The lot is near the Dama Rose Hotel, popular with the U.N. observers in Syria and where many of the mission staff are staying.

It was not immediately clear who was behind Wednesday's explosion or what was the intended target. There have been several high-profile bombings in the Syrian capital. On July 18, an explosion in a key government headquarters in Damascus killed four top generals, including Assad's brother-in-law. And in March, a double suicide bombing in Damascus killed 27 people.

"Those who carry out such terrorist attacks are destroying their country in order to get some pounds," shouted a Damascus resident, Ali Mohammed Ismail, 48, who said he happened to be in the area when the explosion went off.

AP writers Suzan Fraser in Ankara, Albert Aji in Damascus and Guido Goulart in Dili , East Timor contributed to this report.

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The Security Council will let the U.N. military observer mission's mandate in Syria expire Sunday and will back a new civilian office there to support U.N. and Arab League efforts to end the country's 18-month conflict.

France's U.N. Ambassador Gerard Araud, the current Security Council president, said Thursday that members agreed to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's proposal for a liaison office.

Araud said the council agreed that conditions set for possibly extending the mission of the unarmed observers past Sunday were not met. He says there was no halt to the Syrian government's use of heavy weapons and no significant reduction in violence.

Russia's U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said an action group will meet Friday to call for an end to the violence.

"More than 18,000 people have been killed during the last 18 months," Ban told reporters in East Timor on Wednesday. "The Syrian people have suffered too much too long."

The Security Council initially authorized the 300-strong observer mission to deploy to Syria for 90 days to monitor implementation of a six-point peace plan brokered by U.N.-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan. The plan was to start with a cease-fire and withdrawal of the government's heavy weapons and culminate with Syrian-led political talks.

Assad's government and opposition forces agreed to the plan, but it was never implemented.

Because of the worsening bloodshed and insecurity, the observers have been mainly confined to their hotels since June 15, and their numbers have been cut by about two-thirds. The U.N. said Wednesday that 110 observers remain in Syria, mainly in Damascus. A bomb exploded Wednesday outside their hotel, wounding three people, but no observers were hurt.

Frustrated at the escalating conflict and the failure of world powers on the Security Council to unite to stop the chaos, Annan announced last month that he was resigning effective Aug. 31.

Russia and China have vetoed three Western-backed Security Council resolutions that would have stepped up pressure especially against the Syrian government by threatening sanctions if the fighting didn't stop.