Syrian rebels have seized control of a third border crossing with Turkey after fierce battles with government troops, as fighting raged in the key cities of Aleppo and Damascus.
VOA correspondent Elizabeth Arrott reported from the Syrian capital Wednesday that thick, black smoke was rising from contested suburbs there.
At the Tal Abyad crossing near Turkey, rebels tore down the Syrian flag as Turkish authorities quickly closed the area and prevented a crowd of people from attempting to storm the border and cross into Syria.
This is the first time forces fighting to overthrow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad have overrun a border zone in al-Raqqa province, most of which has remained solidly pro-government.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said rebels withdrew from three southern districts of Damascus after weeks of heavy combat and shelling. In the northern city of Aleppo, the army said rebels attacked several military positions in the east overnight and that helicopter gunships eventually drove them off.
The Observatory said 32 people have been killed nationwide so far on Wednesday, including 27 civilians, after 173 died the previous day.
Also Wednesday, Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi met President Assad and other officials in Damascus to discuss proposals by regional powers to end the 18-month conflict. Iran, Syria's main Middle East ally, has denied accusations it is providing military aid to the Syrian government.
Following their meeting, Mr. Assad said the war engulfing Syria was targeting not only it but the “axis of resistance” – a term Syria, Iran and Lebanon's Shi'ite Hezbollah movement use to refer to their common opposition to Israel.
Meanwhile, Amnesty International said the Syrian government has been increasingly carrying out “relentless, indiscriminate” attacks against residential areas that appear to be aimed solely at punishing civilians seen as sympathetic to rebel forces.
The rights watchdog released a report Wednesday based on its investigation earlier this month in Idlib, Jabal al-Zawiya and Hama provinces.
Amnesty's Donatella Rovera told VOA the situation in northern Syria has significantly deteriorated since the end of July when government forces were pushed out from most of the area.
“Since then they've been essentially striking from afar, both air bombardments and artillery and mortar shelling, which are of very little use for hitting military targets because they are aerial weapons.”
Rovera said such “battlefield weapons” have a wide impact radius and fall randomly over residential areas “with disastrous consequences for the civilian population.”
Amnesty reiterated calls made by human rights groups for the United Nations Security Council to refer the situation in Syria to the International Criminal Court for probes into possible war crimes.
It also warned that opposition fighters may turn to indiscriminate attacks and urged rebel groups to communicate to fighters that such violations will not be tolerated.
Earlier this week, a United Nations panel presented a finding blaming both sides in Syria for increasing the number of attacks against civilians.
The U.N. commission of inquiry said that although both government and anti-government forces committed war crimes, the abuses by opposition forces did not reach the “gravity, frequency and scale” of those carried out by pro-government fighters.
