Syria troops battle to retake Damascus suburbs

By Khaled Yacoub Oweis and Mariam Karouny

AMMAN/BEIRUT (Reuters) - Around 2,000 Syrian troops backed by tanks launched an assault to retake Damascus suburbs from rebels on Sunday, activists said, a day after the Arab League suspended its monitoring mission in Syria because of worsening violence.

They said 19 civilians and rebel fighters were killed as the soldiers in armoured personnel carriers moved in at dawn, along with at least 50 tanks and other armoured vehicles.

The forces of President Bashar al-Assad pushed into the Ghouta area on the eastern edge of Damascus to take part in an offensive in the suburbs of Saqba, Hammouriya and Kfar Batna.

Tanks advanced into the centre of Saqba and Kfar Batna, the activists said, in a move to flush out fighters who had taken over districts less than eight km (five miles) from Assad's centre of power.

"It's urban war. There are bodies in the street," said one activist, speaking from Kfar Batna. Activists said 14 civilians and five insurgents from the rebel Free Syrian Army were killed there and in other suburbs.

Residents of central Damascus, which has remained relatively calm throughout Syria's 10-month crisis, reported seeing soldiers and police deployed around main squares to prevent unrest spreading into the heart of the capital.

The escalating bloodshed prompted the Arab League to suspend the work of its monitors on Saturday. Arab foreign ministers, who have urged Assad to step down and make way for a government of national unity, will discuss the crisis on February 5.

Arab League chief Nabil Elaraby left for New York where he will brief representatives of the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday to seek support for an Arab peace plan that calls on Assad to step aside after months of protests.