DAMASCUS, Aug. 27 (Xinhua) -- Shelling and gunfire reverberate across Damascus on Monday in renewed clashes in the Syrian capital between government troops and opposition fighters, who claimed to have shot down a helicopter gunship in a restive district.
The residents of Damascus woke up Monday to the rattling sound of shelling and gunfire. Witnesses and media reports said the Syrian troops are carrying out a large-scale cleansing campaign in the southern and the eastern wing of Damascus.
Local reports said fighting is currently underway in Jobar, Ain Tarma, al-Wadi, Qaboun and their surrounding areas, adding that seven pickup trucks equipped with automatic machine-guns have been destroyed.
It said the government troops have closed all routes leading to those areas so as to keep in the gunmen for a deadly fight.
Meanwhile, the state-TV said that a military helicopter gunship was downed in Qaboun near the mosque of al-Ghufran.
The TV disclosed no further details, but witnesses said the gunship was making a turn at a low altitude when it got hit. The activists claimed it was the armed rebels that shot downed the helicopter.
A witness in the upscale district of al-Tijara told Xinhua that she woke up early Monday to the sounds of clashes echoing from nearby Jobar.
The witness said a shell struck a building in the al-Tijara area, but could not confirm if there were any casualties.
Plumes of smokes bellowed the clashes-hit areas, witnesses said.
The clashes in eastern and southern Damascus followed the severe fighting in the western side (Daraya, Muadamieh and al- Mazzeh orchards), where the army said it has regained control and dislodged the armed groups.
Activists claimed that 19 people have been killed so far, most of whom were allegedly killed Damascus' countryside. Yet the activists' claim could not be verified independently.
The build-up of violence in the capital came one day after Syrian President Bashar al-Assad pledged not to allow what he described as foreign-backed scheme to achieve its goal in Syria whatever the cost might be.
Also, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem said Sunday that there would be no dialogue with the Syrian opposition until the " terrorist groups" were cleansed out.
The Syrian authorities brand the armed rebels "terrorists" especially after Jihadist- and al-Qaida-like groups started operating in Syria and waged attacks against government troops.
|
