Major clashes broke out in Damascus and the southern province of Dera'a in Syria, a sign of the difficulty the Assad regime is having in asserting control of rebellious districts.
Major clashes broke out in Damascus and the southern province of Dera'a in Syria on Wednesday, a sign of the difficulty the Assad regime is having in asserting control of rebellious districts.
The regime regained areas of southern Damascus that rose up against it in July in sustained and sometimes bloody fighting. But it was forced once again to move against some of the same suburbs, bombarding them with tanks from the southern ring road and sending in ground troops.
Activists said that 31 men were killed in house-to-house searches by the military, including 24 in the suburb of Kfar Souseh. Pictures of a large number of bodies, many apparently killed by close-range gunshots, were posted on the internet. At the same time, government forces continued to fight rebels in Dera'a to the south and in the province of Deir al-Zour, on the Iraq border, which has gradually slipped out of the regime's grasp over a number of months.
With its increasing use of air power, including jet fighters over Aleppo, there are growing signs that the regime is unable to deploy sufficient ground troops to keep peace throughout the country.
Chinese state media yesterday (Wednesday) accused President Barack Obama of planning to use Syria's chemical weapons stockpile as an excuse to launch a military intervention. Obama earlier this week said Syria's use of chemical weapons would be a "red line".
"Once again, Western powers are digging deep for excuses to intervene militarily," Xinhua said.
The violence is spilling into Lebanon, where 12 people have died in three days of fighting between members of the Sunni and Alawite communities of the northern city of Tripoli - loyal to the rebels and the Assads respectively. An expected ceasefire failed to come into force. Separately, the last moments of a Japanese journalist, Mika Yamamoto, 45, killed by regime troops in Aleppo when they attacked a rebel group she was filming, were described by her husband.
Kazutaka Sato said he was standing a little ahead of his wife when a group of Syrian soldiers started shooting in their direction. He said troops had clearly identified the couple within the short distance between the two sides.
"They started shooting from 20 to 30 metres. I recognised their faces and immediately they opened fire," he said.
In a video published after the attack, apparently taken at a field hospital, a sobbing Sato asked his wife's lifeless body: "That must hurt. Did you suffer?"
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