Syrian troops fight back against rebels
31 January, 2012
AMMAN: Street battles raged at the gates of the Syrian capital on Monday as President Bashar al Assad's troops sought to consolidate their grip on suburbs that rebel fighters had taken only a few miles from the centre of government power. Russia, a UN Security Council and one of Syria's few allies, said President Bashar al Assad's government agreed to talks in Moscow to end the Syrian crisis, but a major opposition body rejected any dialogue with him, demanding he step down. The new fighting and Russian diplomacy came as the Arab League and France prepared to lobby the Security Council to act on a peace plan that would remove Assad from power, in a bid to staunch the flow of blood from Syria's attempt to crush a popular uprising and armed insurgency against Assad. Activists and residents said Syrian troops now had control of Hamouriyeh, one of several districts where they have used armoured vehicles and artillery to beat back rebels who came as close as 8 kilometres to Damascus. An activist said the Free Syrian Army – a force of military defectors with links to Syria's divided political opposition – mounted scattered attacks on government troops who advanced through the district of Saqba, held by rebels just days ago. "Street fighting has been raging since dawn," he said, adding tanks were moving through a central avenue of the neighbourhood. "The sound of gunfire is everywhere." Russia's Foreign Ministry said Syria agreed to Russian-brokered negotiations over the crisis, but senior members of the council that claims to speak for a fragmented Syria opposition said there was no point in talking to Assad, who must quit. "We rejected the Russian proposal because they wanted us to talk with the regime while it continues the killings, the torture, the imprisonment," Walid al Bunni, foreign affairs chief for the Syrian National Council, told reporters. The rebels said at least 15 people had been killed as they pulled back in Saqba and Kfar Batna. Activists have claimed a death toll of several dozen in three days of fighting in the districts, which have seen repeated protests against Assad's rule and crackdowns by troops on the 10-month-old uprising. The escalating bloodshed prompted the Arab League to suspend the work of its monitors on Saturday. Arab foreign ministers, who have urged Assad to step down and make way for a government of national unity, are due to discuss the crisis on February 5. Syria's state news agency said six soldiers died in a single attack near Deraa in the south and that "terrorists" blew up a gas pipeline, often targeted during the uprising against Assad. Residents of Deraa – where anti-Assad unrest first flared – said firefights between army defectors and government troops killed at least 20 people, most of them government forces. In Homs, the central Syrian city that has seen both heavy attacks by Assad's forces and sectarian reprisal killings, residents said government troops backed with armour fought rebels near its marketplace. End.
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