Dozens hurt in army bombing near Damascus

Dozens of people were killed or wounded in fierce army bombardment of areas near the Syrian capital on Wednesday, a monitoring group said, while activists charged that toxic gas was deployed. "Regime forces after midnight stepped up military operations in the Eastern Ghouta and Western Ghouta zones of the Damascus region with aircraft and rocket launchers, causing several dozen dead and wounded," said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The Local Coordination Committees, a network of activists, meanwhile, reported "brutal use of toxic gas by the criminal regime in parts of Western Ghouta". And in videos posted on YouTube, the Syrian Revolution General Commission, another activist group, showed what it termed "a terrible massacre committed by regime forces with toxic gas, leaving dozens of martyrs and wounded."