AFP/DamascusFierce clashes broke out near the Syrian capital yesterday as President Bashar al-Assad’s opponents sought to crank up the pressure for UN action after the Arab League withdrew its observers. Regime forces fired heavy artillery and mortar rounds against the Damascus suburbs of Douma, Saaba, Irbin and Hamuriyeh and were locked in close battle with rebel fighters emboldened by a fresh wave of desertions, activists said. At least 66 people were killed yesterday across the country, including 26 civilians, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said in statements received in Nicosia. Its head, Rami Abdel Rahman, said that the clashes near Damascus were the fiercest since the anti-regime revolt broke out in mid-March. The rebel Free Syrian Army said 50 more officers and soldiers turned their back on Assad and in a “steady progression of fighting towards the capital” clashed with army regulars only 8km from Damascus. The regime, in turn, has launched “an unprecedented offensive in the past 24 hours, using heavy artillery” against villages in Damascus and Hama province of central Syria, the rebel army said. It reported clashes as near as 4km from the capital. “The more the regime uses the army, the more soldiers defect,” Ahmed al-Khatib, a local rebel council member on the Damascus outskirts, said. Other rebel sources reported heavy fighting in Rankus, 45km from Damascus, and of heightened tension in Hama, further to the north. Rankus was “besieged for the past five days and is being randomly shelled since dawn by tanks and artillery rounds,” rebel Abu Ali al-Rankusi said by telephone. In Hama, pro-regime snipers were deployed on the rooftops, according to activists, with security forces leaving “bodies of dead people with their hands tied behind their backs” on the streets across several neighbourhoods. The latest toll adds to a tally of at least 232 people—among them 147 civilians—killed since last Tuesday, compiled from reports by the Observatory and state media. In addition to 26 civilians, the London-based rights group said, 26 soldiers, five other members of the security forces and nine army deserters were also among those killed yesterday. The watchdog said the regime soldiers were killed in three separate attacks in the Idlib region of northwest Syria and near Damascus, while the official media reported 16 soldiers killed. The latest spike in violence, on top of what the UN said at the start of January added up to 5,400 killings, pushed the Arab League to suspend its mission to Syria in a surprise move on Saturday. Arab foreign ministers are to meet in Cairo on February 5 to review the suspension, a League official said. League chief Nabil al-Arabi, departing Cairo for the UN, said the decision was taken after Damascus “chose the option of escalation”, but Moscow expressed surprise at the move. “We would like to know why they are treating such a useful instrument in this way,” Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said. The 165 observers deployed a month ago after Damascus agreed to an Arab League plan foreseeing a halt to the violence, prisoners freed, tanks withdrawn from built-up areas and free movement of observers and foreign media. Arabi said yesterday he hopes Moscow and Beijing will allow the UN Security Council to issue a resolution backing a new League plan to end the crisis. “I hope these two countries will alter their position concerning the draft UN Security Council resolution which would adopt the Arab plan,” he said, according to Egypt’s official Mena news agency. This plan looks to a halt in the violence and Assad transferring power to his deputy ahead of negotiations—a formula flatly rejected by Damascus. Moscow opposes the draft UN resolution, and it has proposed its own draft assigning equal blame for the violence on both Assad and the opposition, an option dismissed by the West.