DAMASCUS, Oct. 7 (Xinhua) -- The Syrian troops totally purged two restive suburbs of the capital Damascus on Sunday from armed insurgency and announced them secure, the state-TV said.
Qudsaiah and Hameh have emerged as strongholds for armed rebels over the past few months, before the Syrian troops unleashed an offensive last week to recuperate the two adjunct suburbs from the rampant insurgency there.
Meantime, the sounds of sporadic shellfire have reverberated Sunday in several districts of Damascus, in what appeared to be ongoing military showdown in other restive suburbs.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which has a network of activists on ground, said mortar shells landed at al-Qadam suburb of Damascus on Sunday, giving no further details on casualties at that battered countryside.
The Observatory said a rebel fighter was killed during clashes with government forces at the eastern Ghouta suburb Sunday.
Another activists' network, the Local Coordination Committees, placed the death toll of the people who got killed so far Sunday at 75, blaming the government forces of being behind the daily violence.
However, the activists' accounts could not be confirmed independently.
Meanwhile, Syria's official media said army troops repulsed an attack by armed rebels at the Hanano barracks in the northern city of Aleppo, killing many of them.
The Hanano barracks have been attacked several times over the past several months, during which the armed rebels had managed to enter parts of the barracks but were later flushed out by the Syrian troops.
Sources have said that the Syrian army had recently sent a group of elite forces to Aleppo in hopes of regaining full control over the sprawling crucial province, whose edges stretch to the Turkish borders.
Separately, an official source denied media reports circulating on some Arab TV news stations that a Syrian jet fighter was downed earlier in the day by the rebels in eastern Deir al-Zour province.
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