Syrian troops kill 19 in bid to retake Damascus

Syrian soldiers killed 19 people in fighting to retake Damascus suburbs from rebels, activists said, a day after the Arab League suspended its monitoring mission in Syria because of mounting violence.

Around 2,000 soldiers in buses and armoured personnel carriers, along with at least 50 tanks and armoured vehicles, moved at dawn into the Ghouta area on the eastern edge of Damascus to reinforce an offensive in the suburbs of Saqba, Hammouriya and Kfar Batna, activists said.

The army pushed into the heart of Kfar Batna and four tanks were in its central square, they said, in a move to flush out rebels who had taken over districts just a few kilometres from President Bashar al-Assad’s centre of power.