Syrian forces launched an all-out assault on opposition strongholds in Damascus yesterday, a day after rebels seized crossings on the Iraq and Turkey borders on the 16-month conflict’s deadliest day so far.
Rebel fighters also clashed with troops in several neighbourhoods of Aleppo in what a human rights watchdog called the fiercest fighting yet in Syria’s second city.
At the UN, the Security Council voted unanimously to give one final 30-day extension to a troubled observer mission that was supposed to be overseeing a peace plan for Syria but which suspended its operations on June 16 in the face of mounting violence.
The vote came after emergency consultations just hours before the expiry of the 300-strong mission’s mandate after Russia threatened to use its veto powers as a council permanent member for the second time in as many days.
Syria state television trumpeted the news of the military’s Damascus offensive.
“Our brave army forces have completely cleansed the area of Midan in Damascus of the remaining mercenary terrorists and have re-established security,” it said.
A security services source said the military has launched a general offensive in Damascus after a Wednesday bombing that killed four senior members of the regime, including the national security chief, who died yesterday.
The security source warned that the regime would step up its operations against the rebels.
“The army has so far exercised restraint in its operations, but after the attack, it has decided to use all the weapons in its possession to finish the terrorists off,” the source said.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that regime forces stormed the Jubar neighbourhood of Damascus. The Observatory also reported the fiercest fighting so far between troops and rebel fighters in Aleppo.
Clashes took place even on Syria’s frontiers, activists and witnesses said.
An AFP photographer reported that FSA fighters fought a raging battle with Syrian troops at the Bab al-Hawa border post with Turkey and that some 150 rebels controlled the crossing yesterday.
On Thursday, Iraq’s deputy interior minister Adnan al-Assadi said that the FSA had seized control of all three crossings along their common border.
Meanwhile, another Syrian general has crossed into Turkey, bringing to 22 the number of generals who have fled the unrest in Syria, a foreign ministry diplomat said.
“Ten officers, including one general, fled to Turkey overnight” late Thursday, said the diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Turkey has given sanctuary to dozens of defectors who have formed the Free Syrian Army in opposition to President Bahsar al-Assad’s regime.