AMMAN/BEIRUT, Nov 21 (Reuters) – Syrian warplanes bombed a
Damascus suburb on Wednesday in a push to dislodge rebels from a
stronghold that threatens President Bashar al-Assad’s hold on
the capital, opposition activists said.

Heavy fighting also raged in other outskirts of the city in
the most serious challenge to Assad’s seat of power in months.

AMMAN (Reuters) – Syrian warplanes bombed a Damascus suburb on Wednesday, opposition activists said, as heavy fighting raged for the second day on the outskirts, challenging President Bashar al-Assad’s hold on the capital.

MiG fighter jets hit the suburb of Daraya, situated amid farmland near the main southern highway, where rebels have been battling elite Republican Guard units that have deployed around the town, a major opposition centre of the 20-month revolt.

AMMAN, Nov 20 (Reuters) – Syrian government troops backed by
tanks battled to oust rebel forces from an opposition stronghold
in a Damascus suburb on Tuesday in the heaviest fighting in the
capital for months.

In the country’s north, rebel fighters stormed an air
defence base that President Bashar al-Assad’s military had used
to bombard areas near the Turkish border.

AMMAN, Nov 20 (Reuters) – Syrian government troops backed by
tanks battled to oust rebel forces from an opposition stronghold
in a Damascus suburb on Tuesday in the heaviest fighting in the
capital for months.

In action in the country’s north, rebel fighters stormed an
air defence base that President Bashar al-Assad’s military had
used to bombard areas near the Turkish border.

BEIRUT/AMMAN (Reuters) – Syrian rebels said they had seized the headquarters of an army battalion near the southern gate of Damascus on Monday, the nearest military base to the capital reported to have fallen to opposition fighters in a 20-month revolt.

Activists said the Syrian army had attacked southern districts of Damascus with shelling and rocket fire all day to try to stop the rebels seizing the base, in some of the heaviest bombardment of the capital.

AMMAN (Reuters) – Syrian government forces fired rockets into southern Damascus on Monday in what opposition activists called an indiscriminate bombardment to stop rebels opposed to President Bashar al-Assad advancing from the working class suburbs to the city centre.

The activists said it was the heaviest bombardment in 40 days of air strikes and artillery shelling aimed at blunting the gains by rebels operating from the Sunni Muslim neighbourhoods on the edge of the capital.

AMMAN (Reuters) – A Syrian rebel offensive that captured border crossings with Turkey and Iraq aims to cut off supplies from the country’s main grain and oil-producing region and speed President Bashar al-Assad’s downfall, a tribal leader said.

Speaking from the rebel-held town of Ras al-Ain on the border with Turkey, Sheikh Nawaf al-Bashir said rebels are planning to advance into two lightly defended frontier towns further east in the resource-rich province of Hasaka, 600 km (375 miles) from Damascus.

AMMAN (Reuters) – A month after pro-democracy protests erupted in Syria, Sheikh Mouaz Alkhatib gave an electrifying speech to a crowd in Damascus mourning Sunni demonstrators shot dead by President Bashar al-Assad’s Alawite security forces.

Ordinary Alawites, said the man chosen on Sunday to unite the country’s fractured opposition, were not to blame for Syria’s ills — a message Western leaders hope he can relay to what is now an increasingly radical Sunni-led armed revolt.

AMMAN, Nov 12 (Reuters) – A month after pro-democracy
protests erupted in Syria, Sheikh Mouaz Alkhatib gave an
electrifying speech to a crowd in Damascus mourning Sunni
demonstrators shot dead by President Bashar al-Assad’s Alawite
security forces.

Ordinary Alawites, said the man chosen on Sunday to unite
the country’s fractured opposition, were not to blame for
Syria’s ills — a message Western leaders hope he can relay to
what is now an increasingly radical Sunni-led armed revolt.

AMMAN (Reuters) – Free Syrian Army fighters captured a town on the Turkish border on Thursday in a push to seize control of frontier areas from President Bashar al-Assad’s forces, a rebel commander and opposition sources said.

Ten people were killed in clashes as rebels took Ras al-Ain, an Arab and Kurd town in the northeastern oil-producing province of Hasaka, 600 km (375 miles) from Damascus, the sources said.