Syria’s army unleashed a barrage of rocket and artillery fire on rebel-held areas in a central province yesterday as part of a widening offens-ive against fighters seeking to oust President Bashar al-Assad.
At least 80 people were killed in fighting nationwide, according to activist groups.
Activists said the army recently brought in military reinforcements to the central province of Homs and launched a renewed offensive aimed at retaking patches of territory that have been held by rebels for months.
An amateur video posted online by activists showed rockets hitting buildings in the rebel-held town of Rastan, just north of the provincial capital, Homs. Heavy gunfire could be heard in the background.
Another video showed thick black and grey smoke rising from a building in the besieged city. “The city of Homs is burning... day and night, the shelling of Homs doesn’t stop,” the narrator is heard saying.
Troops also battled rebels around the capital, Damascus, in an effort to dislodge opposition fighters who have set up enclaves in surrounding towns and villages.
The troops fired artillery shells at several districts today, including Zabadani and Daraya.
The United Nations said a record number of Syrians had streamed into Jordan this month, doubling the population of the kingdom’s already-cramped refugee camp to 65,000.
The newcomers are mostly families, women, children andelderly who fled from southern Syria, said Melissa Fleming, spokeswoman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, UNHCR.
She said the agency was working with the Jordan Government to open a second major camp nearby by the end of this month.
Many of the new arrivals in Zaatari are from the southern town of Daraa, where the uprising against Mr Assad first erupted nearly two years ago, Britain’s Save The Children said yesterday.
Five buses, crammed with “frightened and exhausted people who fled with what little they could carry”, pull up every hour at the camp, said Saba al-Mobasat, an aid worker with Save The Children in Jordan. (PA)