Heavy clashes erupt in Syrian capital

Beirut (Lebanon), Feb 6 (AP) Heavy fighting today erupted in Damascus as government forces tried to hold back a new rebel effort to push the civil war into the heart of the Syrian capital, activists said. Elsewhere, a car bomb killed at least 19 security officers. The clashes in Damascus are the most intense to have hit the capital in weeks. The sound of gunfire and blasts from government shelling of rebel-held areas could be heard in most neighbourhoods. Activist videos online showed shell explosions dotting rebel areas east of the city, covering them with clouds of smoke. Government troops blocked traffic at a key intersection in the city's northeast and on a number of nearby roads. Damascus has not experienced fierce fighting on the scale witnessed in other Syrian cities like Aleppo or Homs, where whole neighbourhoods have been destroyed. While the government has lost control of parts of those cities, it has kept a tight grip on the capital, despite rebel attempts to storm the city centre from enclaves on its outskirts. Much of today's fighting centred on the northeastern neighbourhood of Jobar, which is bisected by the Damascus ring road. Rebels, who control the area east of the road, launched attacks on army checkpoints in the regime-controlled western part in a push to seize the road, one of the capital's most important thoroughfares. Rami Abdul-Rahman, director of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said today's shelling of Jobar and Qaboun was part of a wider government offensive against towns and villages near the capital that have been opposition strongholds since the beginning of the uprising against President Bashar Assad in March 2011. The Observatory also reported two car bomb blasts in the ancient city of Palmyra in central Syria. One targeted the local branch of Syria's military intelligence agency, killing at least 19 security officers and wounding many more. A second and apparently coordinated bomb hit another security office. Eight civilians were wounded in gunfire and explosions following the two attacks, the Observatory said. (AP) KKM KUN 02070137 NNNN