45 killed in Syrian military attacks near Damascus

Attacks by government forces on Damascus' rebellious suburbs killed at least 45 people, including eight children, activists said Monday. Sunday's death toll was part of an intensifying regime offensive to dislodge rebels from strategic areas around the capital.
     
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights that 24 of the dead, including all eight children, were killed by government air and artillery strikes in the eastern Ghouta district on Sunday. The rest of the casualties were in towns and villages outside the capital, the Observatory said, and included 13 rebels killed in clashes.
     
Activists said the bombardments were some of the heaviest in the Damascus region since the government launched a series of offensives there in November.
     
On Monday, Syrian fighter jets carried out fresh air-strikes on the strategic suburb of Daraya, from which opposition fighters have tried to storm Damascus, the seat of Assad's power.
     
Daraya is close to a number of strategic facilities. The suburb is flanked by the key districts of Mazzeh, home to a military air base, and Kfar Sousseh, where the government headquarters, the General Security intelligence agency head office and the Interior Ministry are located. Last week, the government said it has regained control over more than half of the suburb.
     
The regime's current push in Damascus comes a week after Assad dismissed international calls to relinquish power and vowed to continue fighting rebels, whom he characterized as Islamic extremists out to destroy Syria.

This as the Human Rights Watch Organization issued a report on Monday whereby it stated that the Syrian forces are using notoriously indiscriminate rockets that contain explosive sub munitions. Evidence indicates that Syrian forces used BM-21 Grad multi-barrel rocket launchers to deliver cluster munitions in several attacks.         

The reports added that these are the first known instances of Syrian use of ground-based cluster munitions. No information is available on how or when Syria acquired these cluster munitions, which were manufactured in Egypt. Human Rights Watch and others have previously reported use of air-dropped cluster bombs.            

“Syria is escalating and expanding its use of cluster munitions, despite international condemnation of its embrace of this banned weapon,” said Steve Goose, director of the Arms division at Human Rights Watch. “It is now resorting to a notoriously indiscriminate type of cluster munitions that gravely threatens civilian populations.”        

On the other hand, 55 states are planning on requesting on Monday that the UN Security Council refers the file of the Syrian conflict to  the International Criminal Court in order to launch investigations in the war crimes committed in Syria.              

The request will be presented in a petition drafted by Switzerland which spent seven months collecting signatures.          

On the ground:            

Six children were killed in an air-strike which targeted the city of Maadamiyeh, southwestern Syria, according to the British based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

For its part, Jordan announced that it had set up an office affiliated with its interior ministry to deal with the influx of Syrian refugees fleeing their country's civil war.
   
The kingdom has sheltered about 300,000 Syrians who escaped the 22-month conflict. But its single refugee camp in Zaatari has had scores of problems, including recent flooding, flimsy tents and miserable conditions.
     
The state Petra news agency said Monday that Maj. Gen Mohammad al-Zawahreh will head the new refugee office.
     
The report came as the U.N. refugee agency's representative to Jordan, Andrew Harper, said 822 Syrians crossed overnight into Jordan. Harper says about 12,000 Syrians entered the country during the first two weeks of January.


AP/LBCI