Heavy clashes rock Damascus after 148 people killed

Rebels have taken up positions across the southern suburbs of Damascus Heavy fighting has raged in flashpoint districts on the outskirts of Syrian capital Damascus, a monitoring group said, as world leaders struggle to find a way out of the two-year conflict. A mortar attack on Damascus University has killed and wounded several people, Syrian state television reported, blaming rebels.
"Terrorists fire mortar rounds on the faculty of architecture in Damascus, and according to initial reports several people have been killed or wounded," the broadcaster said, using the regime term for rebels fighting against the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.
Clashes have struck areas across Syria’s capital city.
"Fierce battles broke out at dawn on Thursday pitting rebels against troops in the (northeastern) district of Qaboon, while tanks shelled the neighbourhood's edges," said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
According to Syrian activist sources, the rebel Free Syrian Army (FSA) is battling with the army’s 90th Brigade in Quneitra.
Clashes also raged on a main road linking the southern Damascus area of Yarmouk to al-Hajar al-Aswad, said the Britain-based group.
Both districts have seen intermittent fighting in recent months, with rebels taking up positions all along the capital's southern belt despite consistent army attempts to force the insurgency out of the city.
Fighting was also reported in the southwestern district of Qadam, said the Observatory, while army tanks pounded the nearby town of Daraya, keeping up a relentless weeks-long assault aimed at crushing insurgents.
Damascus has suffered an escalation in violence in recent days. Rebels have stepped up mortar attacks on districts in the heart of the capital and the army has clashed daily with insurgents in several neighbourhoods.
"The fighting is slowly escalating in Damascus," said Ahmad al-Khatib, a Damascus province-based spokesman of the Syrian Revolution General Commission, a network of activists on the ground.
"In recent days we have seen frequent clashes around Abbasiyeen square, which is one of the capital's main squares," he told AFP via the Internet, adding rebels were infiltrating the north-east of the capital through Adra village.
Thursday's violence comes a day after at least 148 people were killed in violence across Syria, the Observatory said. Among them were 63 civilians, 28 soldiers and 57 rebel fighters.
Local Coordination Committees meanwhile reported 111 deaths on Wednesday evening, with seven women and 11 children among that number.
Embattled Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has meanwhile urged BRICS nations to help "stop the violence" in his country and end the suffering of his people, which he blamed on international sanctions.
His plea came as rights watchdog Amnesty International said the world must press all parties to the conflict -- which has killed an estimated 70,000 people since March 2011 -- to "end war crimes and crimes against humanity."
"I call on the BRICS leaders to work together to immediately stop the violence in Syria in order to guarantee the success of a political solution," Assad said in a letter to South African President Jacob Zuma.
"This requires clear international will in order to dry out the terrorists' resources, and to put an end to their financing and their arming," Assad said in the letter published by state news agency SANA.
But Assad said the suffering of the Syrian people was "caused by unjust economic sanctions that are against international law and that directly impact the lives and basic needs of our citizens."
Syria wants to work with BRICS countries "as a just force that seeks to bring peace, security and cooperation among countries, far from the hegemony and injustice imposed on our peoples and nations for decades," Assad said.
After a meeting in Durban, South Africa, the leaders of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa expressed "deep concern" over the deteriorating security and humanitarian situation in Syria, while tacitly opposing Western calls for Assad to be ousted.
They called for a "Syrian-led political process" to achieve peace through dialogue "that meets the legitimate aspirations of all sections of Syrian society and respect for Syrian independence."
The news comes the same day as United Nations officials complained they had not been given the “unfettered access” promised by the regime in investigations surrounding an alleged chemical weapons attack in Aleppo.
The United Nations wants the team to start work as early as next week but has still not reached an agreement with President Bashar al-Assad's government on the extent of the investigation, diplomats and UN officials said.
The Syrian government has asked the UN to investigate its accusation that opposition rebels used chemical weapons in Aleppo province.
Britain and France have demanded that the inquiry also take up opposition demands that the government staged that attack and other two other allegations that the government used chemical weapons.
UN leader Ban Ki-Moon on Tuesday named Swedish scientist Ake Sellstrom, a veteran of 1990s arms investigations in Iraq, to head the inquiry.
Ban has repeatedly demanded that the physics, chemical and health experts be given "unfettered access" in Syria to determine whether chemical weapons have been used in the two-year-old conflict.
"The government has still not given this pledge. This will be the key to whether the mission can start, but it is too early to say yet that it will be called off," a UN diplomat told AFP.
On Wednesday, sources inside the Syrian Revolution General Commission claimed government forces had used chemical weapons and poison gas to bomb rebel positions in Alyeabih, Damascus.
Opposition group the Syrian National Coalition (SNC) has also opened in Qatar on its first "embassy," a day after opponents of President Bashar al-Assad were given Damascus's seat at the Arab League.
Opposition chief Ahmed Moaz al-Khatib and Qatari State Minister for Foreign Affairs Khaled al-Attiya inaugurated the representative office dubbed the "Embassy of the Syrian National Coalition.”
The original Syrian embassy itself remains closed.
Gulf states announced in March last year that they were closing their missions in Syria over Assad forces' crackdown on dissent that has transformed into a civil war that has killed more than 70,000 people.