Syrian army captures suburb south of Damascus

      
Syrian troops captured a contested suburb of Damascus on Wednesday as the government forged ahead with a punishing military offensive that already has taken four other opposition strongholds south of the capital, state media said.         

The town of Hejeira on Wednesday became the latest rebel-held suburb to fall into government hands. The SANA state news agency said the army seized control of the town, but was still battling rebels on the outskirts.            

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights activist group confirmed that government forces were in control of most of Hejeira, but said there were still small pockets of resistance.             

Pan-Arab Al-Mayadeen TV, which had a reporter embedded with Syrian government forces in the offensive, broadcast what it said were live images from the streets of Hejeira, showing shattered store fronts, sandbags piled at street corners and the gutted concrete hulks of apartment buildings.            

The opposition's hold on Hejeira became untenable after the military captured the adjacent town of Sabina in recent days.             

Also on Wednesday, mortar shells slammed into the Bab Touma and Zablatani neighborhoods of Damascus, killing at least two people and wounding some 20 others, according to SANA. The Observatory put the death toll at three.              

In addition to its advances on the periphery of Damascus, the government also has made inroads in recent weeks outside the northern city of Aleppo. Assad's forces have wrested back a military base near the city's international airport as well as two towns along the highway southeast of the air field.            

Observatory director Rami Abdurrahman said government helicopters on Wednesday were dropping barrel bombs on rebel positions inside Tel Hasel, which is the sole town along the highway still in opposition hands.        

On another note, the US State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said on Tuesday night that the United States welcomes the Syrian Coalition's decision to participate in the Geneva II conference.            

The spokeswoman added that the goal of the conference is the full implementation of the Geneva Communiqué and establishing by mutual consent of the two negotiating delegations a transitional governing body exercising full executive powers.             

Russia, Syria's staunch ally:         

Russia may donate $2 million toward eliminating Syria's chemical weapons and is ready to offer expert help to the body tasked with the mission, a senior official said on Wednesday.              
The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), which won the Nobel Peace Prize last month, has raised about 10 million euros ($13.5 million) to inspect Syrian chemical arms sites under a U.S.-Russian agreement reached in September.            

But it needs more funds to destroy more than 1,000 tonnes of chemical weapons declared by Syria.            

"Russia, in principle, is ready to offer technical assistance, experts and perhaps financial assistance. This issue is being discussed, but the amount is somewhere around $2 million," Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov was quoted by the state-run RIA news agency as saying.                


AP/LBCI