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Summary Syria's army Tuesday pounded parts of Damascus where rebels claim to have downed a helicopter.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported fierce shelling of the eastern neighbourhoods of Zamalka, Qaboon, Jubar and Ein Tarma, while a rebel commander told AFP the army had also launched an offensive targeting the rural Ghuta area east of Damascus.The Observatory also reported heavy shelling by regime forces Tuesday of rebel bastions in the commercial capital Aleppo as well as in the northwestern town of Kafr Nabal in Idlib province, where it said at least 10 people died.The latest violence follows a bloody Monday in which 190 people were killed across Syria, according to the Britain-based Observatory, and comes amid growing global concern over the plight of civilians caught up in the brutal civil war.The chorus of criticism is being led by UN chief Ban Ki-moon, who on Monday demanded an independent inquiry into the killings of hundreds of civilians in the Syrian town of Daraya last week.The UN chief was shocked by the reports of hundreds of bodies found in Daraya, southwest of Damascus, that was subjected to a five-day assault by pro-government forces last week, his spokesman Martin Nesirky said.The secretary general is certainly shocked by those reports and he strongly condemns this appalling and brutal crime, Nesirky told reporters.Where hundreds of civilians have been killed in Daraya, this needs to be investigated immediately in an independent and impartial fashion, the spokesman added.The Observatory said on Tuesday that another seven unidentified bodies were found in Daraya, bringing to around 340 the number of corpses retrieved from the town after what activists described as brutal five-day onslaught of shelling, summary executions and house-to-house raids by pro-government forces.The Sunni Muslim town of some 200,000 people is seen as a stronghold of opposition to the minority Alawite-led regime of President Bashar al-Assad.Grisly videos issued by opposition activists showed dozens of charred and bloodied bodies lined up in broad daylight in a graveyard in Daraya, and others lying wall-to-wall in rooms in a mosque.State media said the operation had purified terrorist remnants in Daraya, while pro-government television Al-Dunia said terrorists had carried out the killings.The White House said the reports of the Daraya massacre were the latest evidence of Assads wanton disregard for human life.Britain said it would be an atrocity on a new scale and the European Union said it was totally unacceptable.Tuesdays shelling of east Damascus comes a day after rebels from the Free Syrian Army claimed to have downed a military helicopter in Qaboon during relentless shelling, heavy fire by combat helicopters and fierce clashes between troops and rebels.State television said the aircraft crashed near a mosque. Pro-regime Al-Watan newspaper on Tuesday reported that the army had cleansed the Aleppo neighbourhood of Al-Izaa, adjacent to Saif al-Dawla district, of armed men and seized large quantities of arms and ammunition.This opens the way for cleansing the neighbourhood of Zabdiyeh and seizing the Saif al-Dawla and Sukari districts, it said.The army took back Salaheddin from the rebel fighters in early August, but pockets of resistance remain, while the opposition still controls Saif al-Dawla and Sukari.
