Activists report clashes near Syrian capital

[March 16, 2012]  BEIRUT (AP) -- Syrian troops clashed with army defectors in several areas near the capital Damascus in the first significant battles there since President Bashar Assad's forces regained control of the suburbs weeks ago, activists said Friday.

The clashes highlight the shifting nature of the Syrian conflict, with rebel fighters igniting new fronts soon after the regime turns its attention elsewhere.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the clash in Tal, on the outskirts of the capital, lasted until the early hours of Friday. The Observatory and the Local Coordination Committees said there were also clashes in other areas near Damascus, including Dumair and Qatana on Thursday night.

Both groups also reported clashes between troops and army defectors known as the Free Syrian Army in the eastern oil-rich province of Deir el-Zour that borders Iraq. They said one person was killed.

In early February, Assad's troops launched a major military campaign during which regime forces put the suburbs surrounding capital under government control. The attack on the Damascus countryside was followed by a regime offensive to expel rebel forces from the Baba Amr district of Homs and Idlib in northern Syria.

Assad's year-old crackdown on the uprising has killed more than 8,000 people, the U.N. says.

Syria-based activist Mustafa Osso said there were casualties in the Damascus suburbs clashes but he didn't have the exact figures.

"Every time the regime controls a specific area we witness clashes in new regions," Osso said. "It seems that this is the strategy of the Free Syrian Army."

The Syrian uprising began in March last year with mostly peaceful protests in a number of the country's impoverished provinces. As security forces violently suppressed the protests, the uprising escalated into an armed insurrection.

On Thursday, tanks and snipers besieged opposition areas, including the southern city of Daraa where the uprising began last March, touched off by the arrest of a group of youths who scrawled anti-regime graffiti on a wall.

Western and Arab countries have struggled to stop the bloodshed by calling on Assad to step down and imposing sanctions. Many in the opposition say only military aid can stop the killing and bring Assad down, but no countries are openly arming the opposition.

France on Thursday rejected weapons requests by the Syrian rebel forces, saying that arming the Syrian opposition could lead to catastrophic civil war.

[Associated Press; By BASSEM MROUE]

Bassem Mroue can be reached on twitter at http://twitter.com/bmroue.

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