Heavy fighting rages in Syria, further chemical attacks reported

PanARMENIAN.Net - Heavy fighting raged around the strategic Syrian border town of Qusair and the capital Damascus on Monday, May 27 and further reports surfaced of chemical weapons attacks by President Bashar al-Assad's forces on rebel areas, Reuters said.

The Syrian military pounded eastern suburbs of Damascus with air strikes and artillery and loud explosions echoed around al-Nabak, 80 km (50 miles) north of the capital, where fighting has cut the highway running north to the central city of Homs, the pro-opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights group said.

Opposition activists said Syrian troops backed by Lebanese Hezbollah fighters were pressing a sustained assault on Qusair, a town long used by insurgents as a way station for arms and other supplies from Lebanon.

For Assad, Qusair is a crucial link between Damascus and loyalist strongholds on the Mediterranean coast. Recapturing the town could also sever connections between rebel-held areas in the north and south of Syria.

Hezbollah's deepening involvement in Qusair has raised the prospect of renewed civil war in Lebanon, where two rockets hit the Shi'ite Muslim movement's stronghold in south Beirut on Sunday and one was fired from south Lebanon towards Israel.