The Free Syrian Army called for all international roads to be cut off, "from (northern) Aleppo to (southern) Daraa and from (eastern) Deir Ezzor to (coastal) Latakia, to cut off and seize the supply lines."
Syria's rebels announced the launch of a "Damascus volcano" offensive against regime forces, which according to activists deployed helicopters today in a Damascus neighbourhood rocked by intense fighting.
Russia, meanwhile, slammed as "blackmail" Western pressure to push for a UN Security Council resolution against Syria's regime, as a top defector warned that Assad would not hesitate to use chemical weapons against his own people.
The Free Syrian Army's (FSA) central-Homs Joint Command said its operation, dubbed "the Damascus volcano and earthquakes of Syria," was launched "in response to massacres and barbaric crimes" committed by the Assad regime.
The FSA, the statement said, started to conduct "attacks on all security stations and branches in the cities and the countryside, to enter into fierce clashes (with their forces) and to call on them to surrender."
The FSA called for all international roads to be cut off, "from (northern) Aleppo to (southern) Daraa and from (eastern) Deir Ezzor to (coastal) Latakia, to cut off and seize the supply lines."
Hours after the FSA announcement, monitors and activists reported that the regime had early today deployed helicopters to fire into Qaboon district of Damascus and that rebels and troops had clashed violently in Al-Midan and Al-Hajar al-Aswad neighbourhoods.
"Regime forces used helicopters equipped with heavy machineguns to strike the district of Qaboon," said the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
A Damascus-based activist told AFP that the helicopter assault came after the FSA in Qaboon had repulsed an attempt by regular troops to reclaim the neighbourhood.
The army "violently shelled the neighbourhood with mortars (and) shot machinegun fire randomly into the district from low-flying helicopters," said the activist, who identified himself as Omar.
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