Syria resumes shelling on Damascus districts

 
Tanks and helicopters launch deadly strikes in southern areas of the capital as rebel fighters return.
The Syrian army has deployed tanks on a ring road surrounding Damascus and shelled southern neighbourhoods where rebels operate, the heaviest bombardment in the capital since the army reasserted control last month, residents and activists said.
At least 40 people were killed in the shelling, which was accompanied by attacks from helicopters, and in ensuing ground raids on the Kfar Souseh, Daraya, Qadam and Nahr Aisha neighbourhoods, they said.
"The whole of Damascus is shaking with the sound of shelling," a woman in Kfar Souseh said.
She said the army's artillery was also firing on the capital from the Qasioun and Saraya mountains overlooking Damascus. The assaults in the capital coincide with the departure of the United Nations observer mission, whose members are leaving after failing to secure a ceasefire.
Maaz al-Shami, a member of the Damascus Media Office, a group of young opposition activists monitoring the crackdown in Damascus, said rebels who had left the city during a fierce army campaign last month had started to return.
"They went back to their homes, or disappeared in the green belt surrounding Damascus," Shami said.
"They are back now, and the regime is responding with daily shelling and helicopter bombardment. A war atmosphere in Damascus is setting in."
The renewed attacks followed what activists said was a bloody raid on the Maadamiya neighbourhood on Tuesday.
Funeral targeted
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a London-based anti-government group, said it had documented the names of at least 42 civilians killed in the mixed suburb, which is home to around 200,000 Christians, Alawites and Sunni Muslims.
The SOHR said government troops had targeted a funeral procession, and that dozens of unidentified bodies had been found in a basement as well.
Heavy shelling and clashes also continued on Tuesday across swathes of Aleppo, the country's largest city, as both the regime and rebels claim they are gaining ground in the key northern battleground.
At least 24 people were reported to have been killed nationwide on Tuesday, among them women and children in Aleppo, as the Syrian government pressed rebel-held areas.
The rebel Free Syrian Army (FSA) claimed that it controlled almost two-thirds of the city, which has been battered by a month of air strikes, shelling and fighting.
"We now control more than 60 per cent of the city of Aleppo, and each day we take control of new districts," Abdel Jabbar al-Okaidi, a colonel with the FSA, said.

The conflict has dealt a severe blow to Syria's economy

He went on to list about 30 districts which he claimed were under FSA control, including about half of the neighbourhood of Salaheddin.
A security source in Damascus rejected the FSA claims, according to the AFP news agency, calling them "completely false".
"The terrorists are not advancing," the Syrian source said.
"It is the army that is making slow progress. Terrorist groups occasionally come out of districts under their control and attack other districts to be able to then claim they have this or that street under their control."
Activists also reported that troops had stormed a town near Damascus, torching homes and shops, while helicopters and war planes strafed several suburbs of the capital, which the regime claimed to have largely recaptured last month.

Attacks kill scores in Afghanistan

Afghanistan endured an unusually bloody day Tuesday, with three separate attacks leaving at least 41 people dead and at least 138 wounded, according to government and police officials.

At least 27 people died and 110 were injured in a series of attacks Tuesday afternoon in Zaranj, the capital of the southwestern Afghan province of Nimruz, a government spokesman said.

In northeastern Afghanistan, a bomb blast at a bazaar in Kunduz province killed 10 civilians, while a Taliban ambush in Badakhshan killed a district government chief and three police officers, according to police officials.

The attacks made Tuesday among the bloodiest days in Afghanistan so far this year.

Gen. John R. Allen, commander of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force, said the bomb attacks were the work of Taliban insurgents and called on Taliban leader Mullah Omar to "rein in his murderers."

"What we saw today were further acts of intentional mass murder," he said. "By targeting innocent civilians in populated areas, the insurgents have again shown they will kill non-combatants without hesitation to advance their backward looking plans for Afghanistan."

The first in a series of apparent suicide bomb attacks in Zaranj hit a government gas station, killing and injuring some people, provincial government spokesman Omar Baluch said.

After those victims had been evacuated to a hospital, a second bomb exploded there, causing more injuries and deaths, including some who had been injured in the initial attack, Baluch said.

Police shot two other attackers dead after they used hand grenades in attacks against various targets. Security forces in the province arrested three other bombers who were planning attacks, Baluch said.

Sporadic gunfire could still be heard inside the city Tuesday evening, he added.

The U.S. military was expected to evacuate nine of the injured to a military hospital in neighboring Helmand province, Baluch said.

The ambush that killed the government chief of Sheghnan district and three officers happened Tuesday afternoon in Badakhshan province in northeastern Afghanistan. The attack happened in neighboring Baharak district, which lies between Sheghnan and the provincial capital of Faizabad, Rasekh said.

And in Kunduz, Dashte Archi district chief Shaikh Sadruddin said a motorcycle bomb exploded in a crowded bazaar, killing 10 civilians and wounding 28 others. Children were among the casualties, Sadruddin said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attacks in Zaranj and Dashte Archi, but Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid claimed responsibility for the Badakhshan ambush in an e-mail sent to reporters.

The attacks come one day after police arrested two other would-be attackers in Nimruz.