Syria violence: Fresh clashes, shelling in Damascus and Aleppo, says watchdog

Aleppo, Syria: Syrian troops on Sunday fought rebels and shelled their bastions in the country's two main cities Damascus and Aleppo, a day after UN envoy Lakhdar Brahimi warned the conflict threatens world peace.

The fighting in Damascus erupted at dawn and was focused in the northeast suburb of Harasta, while the army shelled the southern suburb of Al-Hajar Al-Aswad from several directions, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

At least 15 people were killed in violence across Syria overnight and early on Sunday, the Britain-based Observatory, including four men in the morning bombardments on Al-Hajar Al-Aswad.

Fierce explosions rocked Harasta and the nearby northeast suburb of Douma on Sunday, and smoke could be seen rising from the two cities, the watchdog said.

The rebel Assali and Qadam district in the south of Damascus also came under bombardment by the army.

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In Aleppo, a child was killed in shelling during the night of the southwest Fardoss neighbourhood, the watchdog said, adding that a media activist with a rebel group was killed elsewhere in the northern city.

Fresh fighting broke out in the central district of Midan, a battleground between the army and rebels for over a week, according to an AFP correspondent in the area, while the Observatory reported clashes in the nearby Arkoub district.

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Overnight, the army shelled Bustan al-Basha district just north of Midan and also pushed into neighbouring Arkoub after seizing a mosque between the two areas following fierce fighting on Friday, a military source said.

On Sunday, regime forces pummeled Qadi Askar in the centre and Fardoss in the southwest, after pre-dawn bombardments on the eastern districts of Hanano, Sakhur and Sukari, where two rebels were killed according to the Observatory.

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Violence has raged in Aleppo, Syria's commercial capital, since July 20 when regime forces launched an offensive in a bid to drive rebels out of the city.

Elsewhere in the northern province, the Observatory reported waves of residents fleeing the town of Al-Safira, fearing a military operation by security forces.

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Meanwhile, at least four people were killed in an explosion that targeted a bus traveling on the road by the town of Khirbet Ghazaleh in the southern province of Daraa, the Observatory said. No other information was immediately available.

A similar bomb attack against a bus carrying civilians and troops killed at least four people a week ago in the central Syrian province of Homs.

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In the central province of Homs, a man was killed in shelling in the town of Tal Kalakh that borders Lebanon and another man died in shelling in Rastan while the region around the Crac des Chevaliers, a historic Crusader castle, was also pounded, said the watchdog.

Another man was killed by sniper fire in the eastern city of Deir Ezzor while clashes and shelling attacks broke out in the town of Albu Kamal on the Iraqi border, leaving a woman and man killed.

At least 115 people, most of them civilians, were killed across Syrian on Saturday, according to the Observatory, which gathers its information from a network of activists, medical workers and other sources on the ground.

Mr Brahimi, the UN-Arab League envoy to Syria, warned after meeting President Bashar al-Assad in Damascus on Saturday that the worsening conflict in Syria threatens both the region and the world at large.

"The crisis is dangerous and getting worse, and it is a threat to the Syrian people, the region and the world," said Mr Brahimi, who took over as envoy earlier this month from former UN chief Kofi Annan.

The Observatory estimates that more than 27,000 people have been killed since the uprising against Mr Assad's rule erupted in March last year. The United Nations puts the toll at 20,000.