Summary Syria's regime unleashed tanks and warplanes against rebels as battles raged on Wednesday.
Tanks shelled two refugee camps in southern Damascus, where fighting has intensified since the army put down a rebel assault in the southern belt of the capital city where anti-regime sentiment runs strong, a watchdog said.
Fighter jets bombed Maaret al-Numan, a northwestern town rebels captured last month in a major blow to the regime s ability to reinforce troops under attack in second city Aleppo, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
A day after France became the first Western nation to recognise the opposition National Coalition, the regime of President Bashar al-Assad blasted the decision as "immoral".
"Allow me to use the word, this is an immoral position because it allows the killing of Syrians," Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Muqdad told AFP. "They are supporting killers, terrorists and they are encouraging the destruction of Syria."
Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev of Russia, a strong ally of Damascus, also criticised countries siding with the opposition and insisted Moscow was staying neutral.
"We don t support anybody in this conflict, neither President Assad nor the rebels... but unfortunately, the point of view of some states is more one-sided," Medvedev told Finnish broadsheet Helsingin Sanomat.
President Francois Hollande said Paris recognised the coalition as "the sole representative of the Syrian people and thus as the future provisional government of a democratic Syria, allowing an end to the Bashar al-Assad regime".
The question of arming the rebels would now "have to be necessarily reviewed not only in France but in all countries which will recognise this government," said Hollande.
National Coalition chief Ahmed Moaz al-Khatib has called on world powers to arm Assad s foes, saying they desperately needed "specialised weapons" in order to "cut short the suffering of the Syrians and their bloodshed".
The United States said the coalition was "a legitimate representative" of the Syrian people, but stopped short of recognising it as the sole representative.
Britain said it wants to see more evidence the grouping has strong support inside Syria before formally recognising it.
The French move came 24 hours after the coalition was recognised by the members of the Gulf Cooperation Council: Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
