Syrian regime launches offensive on key rebel strongholds

Assad's regime is reportedly securing an 8km radius around Damascus Damascus – Arabstoday Syria's army sent shells smashing into rebel zones on the outskirts of Damascus on Sunday while the Yarmouk refugee camp, a Palestinian area south of the capital, was rocked by fresh fighting, a watchdog reported. "Regime troops shelled Daraya, Beit Sahm, Mleha and Moadamiyat al-Sham," said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights [SOHR], referring to rebel-held towns dotted around the edges of Damascus.
The Britain-based monitoring group, which relies on a network of activists, doctors and lawyers inside Syria, also reported fierce clashes between insurgents and the army in Daraya, southwest of Damascus, and in the Barzeh district of northern Damascus.
It said fighting erupted during the night in Yarmouk, a Palestinian camp in southern Damascus, that has been the scene of violent clashes in recent months, and which was bombed by regime warplanes in December in an assault that sent tens of thousands of residents fleeing to neighbouring countries.
The latest fighting pitted regime troops against rebels in a firefight around a police station, the Observatory said.
The Associated Press [AP] meanwhile quoted Syrian activists as saying regime fighter jets had bombed other suburbs in Damascus, as part of a government offensive to dislodge rebels from strategic areas around the capital.
Airstrikes on towns and villages across the Syrian capital began on Sunday morning, including bombardments on Kfar Batna and Gesereen, while artillery and mortar fire rained down on other neighbourhoods.
The SOHR also reported regime troops battling rebels in the suburb of Daraya a day after government officials said the army had taken much of the strategic area, which lies on the edge of a major military air base just south of the capital.
Violence around Damascus has been on the rise since the army launched an offensive last July against rebels based in several neighbourhoods.
Analysts say the regime is attempting to secure an area of control in a radius of about eight kilometres (five miles) around the capital after it pushed rebels into outlying towns and villages.
In the northern city Aleppo, scene of some of Syria's worst violence since the eruption of an anti-regime revolt almost 22 months ago, clashes raged near an intelligence headquarters, said the SOHR.
Sunday's violence follows a day in which 95 people, among them 33 civilians, 39 rebel fighters and 23 soldiers, were killed across Syria, according to the SOHR.
The United Nations says more than 60,000 people have been killed in violence across Syria since the outbreak in March 2011 of a peaceful uprising that morphed into an insurgency after the regime of President Bashar al-Assad launched a brutal crackdown against dissent.
Source: AFP