Syrian forces hammer rebels near Damascus

President Bashar al-Assad's forces yesterday hammered rebel positions with artillery and air strikes around Damascus, in a strategic assault aimed at securing the Syrian capital as phone and internet services returned after three days.
Internet services around Damascus have resumed after a three-day blackout, as violence intensifies.
While Syria's capital seemed to be back online, it was not clear how much internet access there was elsewhere.
Shellfire from Syria, meanwhile, hit a Turkish border town late Saturday, without causing any casualties. It was the first cross-border shelling since Ankara requested Nato deploy Patriot missiles along the restive frontier.
Fierce fighting erupted in Irbin, a town east of Damascus, as troops also shelled Zabadani to the northwest of the capital and the village of Mliha, leaving many wounded, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Assad's forces have been trying to establish a secure perimeter around Damascus at all costs, turning the region into one of the main battlegrounds in the country's 20-month conflict.
Analysts say the objective of the military campaign is to put the regime in a position to negotiate a way out of a conflict the Britain-based Observatory says has cost more than 41,000 lives since March 2011.
On the ground, tensions further flared up along the Turkish border after shells fired from Syria hit a Turkish border town late Saturday but caused no casualties, state-run Anatolia news agency reported.
Nato foreign ministers meeting Tuesday and Wednesday in Brussels are expected to signal support for Turkey by giving the go-ahead to deploy the missiles, diplomatic sources said.