Plumes of smoke were visible across the Syrian capital as fierce clashes raged for a second day within four miles of both Mr Assad's official residence and the buildings housing his pliant parliament.
Panic-stricken residents fled southern Damascus yesterday (Monday) as the heaviest fighting seen in the city since Syria's uprising began stripped away the last veneer of normality in President Bashar al-Assad's principal stronghold.
Plumes of smoke were visible across the Syrian capital as fierce clashes raged for a second day within four miles of both Mr Assad's official residence and the buildings housing his pliant parliament.
With opposition forces claiming to have embarked on a new strategy "to bring the fighting into the centre of the capital", the Syrian conflict - described for the first time as a "civil war" by the Red Cross on Sunday - entered a dangerous new phase.
But even this most dramatic of escalations failed to break the deadlock in the United Nations Security Council.
Russia declared it would not succumb to Western "blackmail" and support a British proposal to try to end the crisis by threatening Mr Assad with sanctions. Kofi Annan, the international envoy to Syria, flew to Moscow in a effort to end an impasse that now threatens the future of the 300-strong observer mission, whose mandate expires on Friday.
As the international acrimony ground on, the man Moscow has propped up for the past 16 months of turmoil struggled to confront one of the biggest challenges posed to his 12-year presidential career.
Mr Assad ordered what appeared to be the biggest military deployment yet in the capital as clashes were reported in six Sunni districts in southern Damascus. Rebel fighters even succeeded in briefly closing off the highway between the city and international airport.
Hundreds of families were seen fleeing the suburbs of Midan and Tadamon, where the fighting was heaviest. Government forces shelled rebel hideouts in both districts and a large number of armoured personnel carriers were deployed.
The southern districts have witnessed a steady increase in fighting, but never on this scale.
Even so, there is little likelihood that the capital will fall. Unlike in the north of the country, the rebels are not yet holding territory in Damascus and no more than a few hundred opposition fighters are thought to be involved in the clashes.
The challenge the rebels have laid down to Mr Assad cannot be ignored.
In a further sign that once-close allies are deserting him, the Saudi newspaper Al Sharq Al Awsat reported the defection of the former head of Syria's chemical weapons programme, Adnan Silu, to the opposition.
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