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A Syrian military
source said on Monday that the army had recaptured all the
positions it had lost on Sunday.
A Reuters witness said that warplanes were active above Damascus
early in the day and that some streets in government-held areas
near the fighting had been closed.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based war
monitor that collects information from a network of sources
across Syria, said heavy fighting continued around the Jobar and
al-Qaboun districts in the northeast of the city.
Rebels had attacked in Jobar to relieve military pressure after
their recent loss of ground in nearby Qaboun and Barza, a
commander from the Failaq al-Rahman group which is fighting
there said on Sunday.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his army, along with allied
Russian, Iranian and Shi'ite militia forces, have put rebels on
the back foot with a steady succession of military victories
over the past 18 months, including around Damascus.
Rebels still hold a large, heavily populated enclave in the
Eastern Ghouta district of farms and towns to the east of the
capital, as well as some Damascus districts in the south, east
and northeast of the city.
The most recent fighting has focused on the areas around Qaboun
and Barza, which the army has isolated from the rest of the main
rebel enclave of Eastern Ghouta and the eastern districts of
Damascus.
(Reporting By Angus McDowall; Editing by Catherine Evans)
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