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mac and delaying outgoing flights, after police found two suspicious packages, one of which was deemed "destructive" and had to be deactivated offsite by a bomb squad.
• The airport was evacuated shortly after 6 p.m. Tuesday when police found one suspicious package in the terminal and another in a nearby parking garage, Jacksonville Sheriff's Office spokesman Shannon Hartley told a news conference at 11 p.m., just after the airport reopened.
• Hartley said one of the packages "had some destructive nature that it had to be taken offsite" but he did not elaborate.
• He would not say which of the packages was destructive, and said he could not confirm local news media reports that two suspects had been arrested.
• When authorities decided to evacuate the terminal and shut down the airport, some incoming planes were held up on the tarmac until buses could arrive to pick up the passengers, airport spokesman Michael Stewart said. He could not say how many planes were held up or for how long. Airport officials tweeted shortly after the evacuation that passengers on inbound flights would be bused to offsite hotels as transportation became available.
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• BEIRUT (AP) -- Activists say heavy clashes between Syrian troops and al-Qaida-linked fighters in northern Damascus have killed at least 12 soldiers and pro-government militiamen.
• The fighting comes as international weapons inspectors are in Damascus to begin their complex task of overseeing the destruction of Syria's chemical weapons against the backdrop of the civil war.
• The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Wednesday that the 12 died the day before in the city's Barzeh district.
• Clashes in Barzeh flared up on Monday when the army launched a push to dislodge the rebels, including al-Qaida-linked Jabhat al-Nusra fighters, from the district.
• The Observatory says the opposition has been trying to capture the area for months in an attempt to take the battle for the capital closer to President Bashar Assad's seat of power.
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