Syrian air and ground bombardment killed at least 27 people in eastern neighbourhoods of Damascus yesterday, prompting thousands of people to flee the area, opposition activists said.

The civilian exodus was the largest from the area since the revolt began

Many more were killed when troops briefly entered several districts after the shelling and air strikes, carrying out summary executions before withdrawing, the activists said.

The civilian exodus was the largest from the area since the revolt against President Bashar al-Assad began, they said.

Syrian state curbs on foreign media make it difficult to verify accounts by both sides in the 17-month-old conflict.

Obaida Omar, an activist in Ain Tarma, said troops entered the house of his neighbour, a carpenter, and killed him as they conducted house-to-house raids.

“He had managed to send his family away. I entered after the troops left and found him hacked (to death). I saw the bodies of three other men with bullet holes to their heads in another building the army stormed,” Mr Omar said by phone.

Activists said most residents of these areas were fleeing towards Damascus or northwards towards the town of Dumair. Mr Assad has been increasingly using his best-equipped and best-trained forces, based on hilltops in and around Damascus, to maintain a grip on the capital, where rebels have been staging hit-and-run attacks against the army.

Rebels said yesterday they had attacked the military airport at Taftanaz, 40 kilometres southwest of Aleppo, to try to stem the air strikes.

“The army fired back at us with artillery inside the airport but it wasn’t enough to protect them from the assault. We hit several helicopters and one of the buildings,” local rebelcommander Abu Moaz al-Shami said.

Meanwhile, Turkey yesterday urged the UN to protect displaced Syrians inside their country but President Bashar al-Assad, battling rebels determined to overthrow him, dismissed talk of a buffer zone on Syrian territory.

Ankara fears a mass influx such as the flight of half a million Iraqi Kurds into Turkey after the 1991 Gulf War, and has floated the idea of a “safe zone” under foreign protection within Syria for civilians fleeing intensifying violence.