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Syria troops battle rebels around Damascus

The Syrian army clashed with rebels on the Damascus outskirts and in the southern Qadam neighbourhood of the capital on Sunday as it pressed its bombardment of rebel-held towns, a watchdog said.

At least one rebel fighter was killed, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Troops shelled rebel-held Daraya southwest of Damascus and Irbin to its northeast, the Britain-based watchdog said. The latter town was hit by air raids on Saturday.

For several days, the military has bombarded rebel strongholds in the suburbs from ground and air, raising fears of a looming ground assault by the army to try to establish a secure cordon around the capital.

Fifty of the 101 people killed nationwide on Saturday were killed in the Damascus region, mostly in the northeastern and southern outskirts of the city, the Observatory said.

In Syria’s second city Aleppo, where fighting has reached stalemate after nearly five months of deadly urban combat, the rebel-held Sakhur district in the east came under shelling overnight.

Elsewhere in the largely rebel-held northern province, the towns of Qabtan al-Jabal and Anadan were also bombarded by the army, the Observatory said.

Civilians accounted for 58 of Saturday’s dead, among them nine children, it added.

In all, more than 42,000 people have been killed since the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad’s rule erupted in March last year, according to the Observatory’s figures.