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BEIRUT, Lebanon — The Syr-ian government, seizing on achance to reclaim territory lost inits ever-escalating civil war, hasloosed a devastating bombard-ment on a rebel-held Damascussuburb, killing at least 200 people,many of them children, aid work-ers said Tuesday.

Syrian officials vowed to showno quarter as they moved to wipeout rebels in the suburb of easternGhouta, with the assault this weekranking as the deadliest there inyears.

“I promise, I will teach them alesson, in combat and in fire,”Brig. Gen. Suheil al-Hassan,leader of the government’s TigerForce, said in a video shared bypro-government social media ac-counts. “You won’t find a rescuer.And if you do, you will be rescuedwith water like boiling oil. You’llbe rescued with blood.”

Residents and emergency med-ical workers in eastern Ghoutaposted a cascade of heart-rendingimages: a family with five chil-dren pulled dead from the rubble;families huddled in basementsand dugout shelters; an ambu-lance crew loading a patient, thenfleeing moments before an explo-sion hits.

“We might die any moment,”Tareq al-Dimashqi, who lives inthe area with his wife and 5-month-old baby, said in an inter-view. “You don’t know where therockets might come from and endour lives.”

The government, backed by itsRussian and Iranian allies, is ma-king clear its determination to re-duce its losses. Even as it bom-barded the Ghouta area, pro-gov-ernment militias in the north ofthe country advanced toward theKurdish enclave Afrin.

Those forces were trying to joinKurdish militias defending Afrinfrom Turkish troops who crossedthe border and were advancingfrom the north. They retreated af-ter Turkish jets and artillery bom-barded them, the Turkish govern-ment said.

The government’s move to sup-port the Kurds threatened to un-ravel months of diplomatic effortsby Russia, Turkey and Iran to de-escalate the conflict. It also sig-naled a new phase of the war witha greater potential for military en-gagements between other coun-tries with a stake in the outcome,among them Turkey, Iran and theUnited States.

In the Ghouta area, Mondaywas the deadliest day in threeyears, according to the Syrian Ob-servatory for Human Rights, aBritain-based war monitoring

Misery MountsAs Syria Shells

Rebel Enclave

Over 200 Killed, Manyof Them Children

By ANNE BARNARDand CARLOTTA GALL

Syrian children huddled inside a makeshift hospital in a Damascus suburb after a devastating bombardment by government forces.HAMZA AL-AJWEH/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE — GETTY IMAGES

Continued on Page A6

WASHINGTON — The son-in-law of a Russia-based billionaireadmitted on Tuesday to lying to in-vestigators about his communica-tions with a former Trump cam-paign aide. The guilty plea by thedefendant, a former lawyer at apowerful New York-based lawfirm, broadened the scope of the

special counsel’s inquiry into Rus-sia’s election interference.

The lawyer, Alex van derZwaan, a 33-year-old Dutch citi-zen, acknowledged in federalcourt in Washington that he lied toprosecutors about a September2016 conversation with RickGates, the former Trump aide,over work they did together for aUkrainian political party alignedwith Russia. He also admitted thathe deleted records of email ex-

changes that prosecutors hadsought. He faces up to five years inprison but said in court that he ex-pected to serve six months or less.

Mr. van der Zwaan’s decision toplead guilty to a felony chargecould intensify pressure on bothMr. Gates and on Paul Manafort,Mr. Gates’s longtime businesspartner and the president’s for-mer campaign chairman. Bothwere charged in the fall with laun-

Guilty Plea by Lawyer Broadens Mueller InquiryBy SHARON LaFRANIEREand KENNETH P. VOGEL

Continued on Page A10

When Hilary Mason, a data sci-entist and entrepreneur, discov-ered that dozens of automated“bot” accounts had sprung up toimpersonate her on Twitter, sheimmediately set out to stop them.

She filed dozens of complaintswith Twitter, repeatedly submit-ting copies of her driver’s license

to prove her identity. She reachedout to friends who worked at thecompany. But days later, many ofthe fake accounts remained ac-tive, even though virtually identi-cal ones had been shut down.

Millions of accounts imperson-ating real people roam social me-dia platforms, promoting com-mercial products and celebrities,attacking political candidates andsowing discord. They spread fakeimages and misinformation about

the school shooting last week inParkland, Fla. They were centralto Russian attempts to sway the2016 presidential election in favorof Donald J. Trump, according to afederal grand jury indictment onFriday. And American intelli-gence officials believe they willfigure in Russian efforts to shapethe coming midterm elections,too.

Yet social media companies of-

How Lax Enforcement Breeds Impostors OnlineBy NICHOLAS CONFESSORE

and GABRIEL J.X. DANCE

Continued on Page A11

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — In-stead of 10th-grade English and12th-grade calculus, the teen-agers from Marjory StonemanDouglas High School in Parkland,Fla., had another funeral to at-tend. When the grim ceremonywas over on Tuesday morning,they hugged their parents good-bye, stashed their backpacks inthe bellies of three buses and setoff in grief and hope to demand

gun control measures from statelawmakers over 400 miles away.

As they were getting on theroad, the lawmakers in Tallahas-see swiftly rejected an effort to de-bate an assault weapons ban in aparty-line vote that said muchabout how far apart most Demo-crats and Republicans are when itcomes to guns. In the balcony,some Parkland students who hadalready made it to the Capitolcould be seen crying, handssmothering mouths.

It was an early reminder that

failure might very well become fa-miliar for these latest, youngestgun control activists, as it has forso many others. Republican law-makers plan to consider moremodest proposals, including rais-ing the minimum age to buy as-sault rifles, before the sessionends in March. Yet a kind of opti-mism — or maybe just an inabilitynot to believe in their own power— was in the humid air.

“This shooting is different fromthe other ones,” said Daniel

A Gut Feeling ‘Something Is Going to Change’By JULIE TURKEWITZ

and VIVIAN YEE

Students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School went to protest in Tallahassee, Fla.SAUL MARTINEZ FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Continued on Page A15

JERUSALEM — The mush-rooming corruption scandalplaguing Prime Minister Ben-jamin Netanyahu of Israel took asurprising new turn on Tuesday,with an allegation that one of hisclosest advisers had sought tobribe a judge into dropping a crim-inal investigation involving theprime minister’s wife.

At the same time, the Israeli po-lice said they had arrested severalof Mr. Netanyahu’s friends andconfidants, as well as top execu-tives of Bezeq, the country’s big-gest telecommunications com-pany, in a widening inquiry intowhether Mr. Netanyahu hadtraded official favors for favorablenews coverage.

The new allegations signifi-cantly raise the level of politicaland legal peril the prime ministerfaces, suggesting that he or somein his camp could be exposed tocharges of obstructing justice.

On Tuesday night, Mr. Netanya-hu’s situation appeared to becomeeven graver, as Israeli news orga-nizations reported that one ofthose arrested — a top govern-ment official who reported di-rectly to Mr. Netanyahu on theBezeq affair — was in talks withprosecutors to become a govern-ment witness.

Mr. Netanyahu was already em-battled, after the police recom-

Allies’ ArrestsRaise PressureOn Netanyahu

By DAVID M. HALBFINGER

Continued on Page A7

WASHINGTON — PresidentTrump — under pressure from an-gry, grieving students from a Flor-ida high school where a gunmankilled 17 people last week — or-dered the Justice Department onTuesday to issue regulations ban-ning so-called bump stocks, whichconvert semiautomatic guns intoautomatic weapons like thoseused last year in the massacre ofconcertgoers in Las Vegas.

A day earlier, Mr. Trump sig-naled that he was open to support-ing legislation that would mod-estly improve the national gunbackground check system, and onTuesday night, he posted on Twit-ter that Democrats and Republi-cans “must now focus on strength-ening Background Checks!”

But Mr. Trump’s first embraceas president of any gun controlmeasures was dismissed by guncontrol supporters as minor. TheNational Rifle Association sup-ports the background check legis-lation and also backs bump stockregulation, although not an out-right ban.

Speaking at the White Housedays after a shooting at MarjoryStoneman Douglas High School,Mr. Trump said that he had di-rected Attorney General Jeff Ses-sions to develop the regulations.

“We cannot merely take actionsthat make us feel like we are ma-king a difference,” Mr. Trump saidat a ceremony as he conferred themedal of valor on public safety of-ficials. “We must actually make adifference.”

In Florida on Tuesday, the Re-publican-controlled State Houserejected an effort to immediatelyconsider a bill to ban large-capaci-ty magazines and the type of as-sault rifles used in last week’s at-tack, even as students from Stone-man Douglas High Schoolwatched from the gallery.

The party-line vote was on anunusual procedural motion of-fered by a Democrat, and Republi-can leaders were critical of the ef-fort to force a vote. They said theywould consider other gun controlbills before the session ends inMarch, but none of those meas-ures is expected to go as far asbanning assault rifles.

At the White House, SarahHuckabee Sanders, the presi-dent’s spokeswoman, said thepresident was determined to findways to protect Americans, andespecially children, from gunmen.

OUTCRY GROWING,TRUMP ENDORSES

2 GUN MEASURES

BACKS ‘BUMP STOCK’ BAN

Students Bare Their Fury— Florida Spurns Ban

on Assault Rifles

By MICHAEL D. SHEAR

Continued on Page A16

Jared Kushner, who is working withinterim security clearances, is resistingrelinquishing his access to highly classi-fied information, prompting a tussle inthe West Wing. PAGE A19

NATIONAL A9-19

Conflict Over ClearancesIn the grip of economic collapse, thegovernment of President Nicolás Madu-ro announced that it had begun a pre-sale of virtual currency backed bypetroleum reserves. PAGE A7

INTERNATIONAL A4-8

Venezuela’s Virtual Currency

Residents are lusting after fresh fruitsand vegetables right now, but they aresometimes scarce in stores like FredMeyer, above, in Anchorage. PAGE D1

FOOD D1-8

In Alaska, Hunting for Produce

A judge recently fined a developer$6.7 million for whitewashing over graf-fiti by 21 artists, including JonathanCohen, in Queens. But the future of theurban art form is uncertain. PAGE A20

NEW YORK A20-21, 24

A Belated Sense of Validation

The new head of New York City Transitvowed to provide “meaningful” detailsand not to blame “overcrowding” whenexplaining why trains are late. PAGE A20

‘Root Cause’ of Subway Delays

Finishing just 0.47 of a second off thelead, the American Lindsey Vonn, 33,became the oldest female Olympicmedalist in Alpine skiing. Sofia Goggiaof Italy won the gold. PAGE B13

SPORTSWEDNESDAY B6-16

Vonn Wins Bronze in Downhill

The South Korea women’s curling team,which has four top athletes from thesame Uiseong County high school, hasbeen piling up wins and fans. PAGE B7

Small City’s Global Celebrities

Tom Wheeler PAGE A23

EDITORIAL, OP-ED A22-23

The upturn follows an aggressive adcampaign by conservative groups andcoincides with an eroding Democraticlead in midterm election polls. PAGE B1

BUSINESS DAY B1-5

Tax Law Gains Public Support

VOL. CLXVII . . . No. 57,880 © 2018 The New York Times Company WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 2018

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