Fierce clashes broke out near the Syrian capital yesterday as President Bashar al-Assad’s opponents sought to crank up the pressure for UN action after the Arab League withdrew its observers.
Regime forces fired heavy artillery and mortar rounds against the Damascus suburbs of Douma, Saaba, Irbin and Hamuriyeh and were locked in close battle with rebel fighters emboldened by a fresh wave of desertions, activists said.
At least 66 people were killed yesterday across the country, including 26 civilians, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said in statements received in Nicosia.
Its head, Rami Abdel Rahman, said that the clashes near Damascus were the fiercest since the anti-regime revolt broke out in mid-March.
The rebel Free Syrian Army said 50 more officers and soldiers turned their back on Mr Assad and in a “steady progression of fighting towards the capital” clashed with army regulars only eight kilometres from Damascus.The regime, in turn, has launched “an unprecedented offensive in the past 24 hours, using heavy artillery” against villages in Damascus and Hama province of central Syria, the rebel army said.
It reported clashes as near as four kilometres from the capital.
“The more the regime uses the army, the more soldiers defect,” Ahmed al-Khatib, a local rebel council member on the Damascus outskirts, said.
Other rebel sources reported heavy fighting in Rankus, 45 kilometres from Damascus, and of heightened tension in Hama, further to the north.
Rankus was “besieged for the past five days and is being randomly shelled since dawn by tanks and artillery rounds,” rebel Abu Ali al-Rankusi said by telephone.
In Hama, pro-regime snipers were deployed on the rooftops, according to activists, with security forces leaving “bodies of dead people with their hands tied behind their backs” on the streets across several neighbourhoods.
The latest toll adds to an AFP tally of at least 232 people – among them 147 civilians – killed since last Tuesday, compiled from reports by the Observatory and state media.
In addition to 26 civilians, the London-based rights group said, 26 soldiers, five other members of the security forces and nine army deserters were also among those killed yesterday.
The watchdog said the regime soldiers were killed in three separate attacks in the Idlib region of northwest Syria and near Damascus, while the official media reported 16 soldiers killed.
The latest spike in violence, on top of what the UN said at the start of January added up to 5,400 killings, pushed the Arab League to suspend its mission to Syria in a surprise move on Saturday.
Arab foreign ministers are to meet in Cairo on February 5 to review the suspension, a League official said.