Assad's forces on offensive; Moscow defends him again

By Oliver Holmes

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian forces swept through the corpse-strewn streets of nearly-deserted opposition districts on the outskirts of the capital on Sunday, as the conflict enters a new phase of heavier fighting near Bashar al-Assad's seat of power.

Government troops also bombed and shelled other towns across the country, a day after Russian diplomats rode again to Assad's rescue, blocking language at a meeting of world powers that would have called on the president to leave power.

Sixteen months into an uprising against Assad in which more than 10,000 people have been killed, intensive fighting and shelling has now reached the outskirts of Damascus. New tension has also built up on the frontier with Turkey in recent days after Syrian forces shot down a Turkish jet.

Residents of the Zamalka district on the capital's outskirts were struggling on Sunday to bury dozens of people killed the day before in a mortar attack on an anti-Assad march, opposition activist Susan Ahmad said by phone from the Damascus suburbs.

More than 40 people were killed in the attack on Saturday when security forces fired a mortar bomb into a funeral procession in Zamalka for a man who had been killed in shelling, activists said.

"It is really bad today across Damascus," said Ahmad. "Zamalka was like a massacre, but we couldn't bury all of the martyrs as it is dangerous to be out on the streets and we can't treat the wounded. There is no medicine."

Government troops were raiding Zamalka and Douma, a town of half a million people on the outskirts of Damascus that now stands almost empty after siege and shelling as the army tried to root out rebels, she said.

"Douma is completely destroyed," said Ahmad. "If you go to Douma you can smell the bodies. It's really like a ghost city."