Syrian rebels aim for Damascus as violence flares

A group of Syrian rebells pose for the camera Rebels and troops clashed in northern Syria as regime foes set their sights on the capital as the  centre for their rallying cry during the  weekly protests on Friday, while the EU prepared to enforce new sanctions on Damascus.
"Damascus, here we come" is  the slogan for anti-regime demonstrations on the day of  the weekly Muslim prayers, as posted by activists on their Facebook page, The Syrian Revolution 2011.
The army and rebels clashed in the Aazaz region near the Turkish border, killing at least three soldiers, and troops bombed a district of the flashpoint city of Homs in central Syria, opposition activists and monitors said.
"Twenty-four rounds of mortar fire have fallen since the morning on the districts of Bab Dreib, Safsafa et Warsheh,"  said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Opposition fighters also seized large quantities of ammunition from the army unit attacked near the village of Bedama.
The EU's sanctions are also likely to be extended to other individuals, including the Syrian's president's, mother, sister and sister-in-law and at least eight ministers. European companies could also be banned from doing business with two more Syrian entities, diplomats said.
A European Union official told AP that Syrian First Lady Asma al-Assad will be hit with a travel ban and have her assets in the EU frozen.
But the official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that as she has British citizenship,  that likely meant that she could not be banned from travel to the UK.
Fierce clashes rage across Syria despite a UN Security Council peace call, with as many as 83 people killed on Thursday, monitors and activists said, as a rights group accused Syrian forces of using “Homs tactics” against a town on the Lebanese border by shelling residential areas.
Twelve people, including women and children, were killed on Thursday as they were fleeing violence in Syria’s northwestern Idlib province on board a bus headed to Turkey, Al Arabiya reported citing Syrian activists.
An opposition activist on the ground said the civilians were headed for Turkey to escape the bloodshed when regime forces opened fire.
The British-based Observatory said earlier that a 17-year-old boy was killed and dozens wounded in an army assault on Sermin itself.
In the deadliest attack on the army, five soldiers were killed in a raid on a military checkpoint in the region of Latakia, said the Observatory.
The region has a large population of Alawites, members of the minority offshoot of Shiite Islam to which President Bashar al-Assad also belongs and which forms the backbone of his regime
The escalation came just hours after the Security Council passed a statement urging Assad and his foes to implement “fully and immediately” international envoy Kofi Annan’s peace plan.
Annan’s plan calls for Assad to pull troops and heavy weapons out of protest cities, a daily two-hour humanitarian pause to hostilities, access to all areas affected by the fighting, and a UN-supervised halt to all clashes.
Clashes  were also reported in and around Sermin, a village near the town of Binesh in Idlib, as army shelling and tank fire threw up thick plumes of black smoke.
Monitors say more than 9,100 people have been killed in a revolt against Assad that started with peaceful protests before turning into an increasingly armed revolt, faced with a brutal crackdown costing dozens of lives each day.
On the rebel side, the Free Syrian Army (FSA) has set up a military council to coordinate hit-and-run strikes around Damascus, it announced in an online video.
However the rebels are running out of ammunition, US newspaper The Washington Post said. The report said black market supplies were drying up as neighbouring countries tighten their borders and international promises of help have failed to materialise. Some rebels are also going hungry as they withdraw deeper into remote mountainous terrain, away from populated centres where they rely on the sympathies of residents for food and support.
Human Rights Watch charged Thursday that Syrian forces were using “Homs tactics” against Qusayr, which lies on the Lebanese border, by shelling residential areas, deploying snipers and attacking civilians trying to flee.
Citing 18 witnesses, HRW said similar tactics were employed by government forces in their capture of the cities of Idlib and Homs earlier this month.
Residents of Qusayr had told HRW that rebels who pulled out of the Baba Amro district of Homs on March 1 after a month-long shelling that monitors said cost hundreds of lives had joined FSA comrades in their town.
Meanwhile, various factions of the Syrian opposition will meet early next week in Istanbul to coordinate their requests for support prior to the second conference of “Friends of the Syrian People” on April 1.
“The goal is to prepare for the conference of Friends of Syria,” Halit Hoca, a member of the main opponent group Syrian National Council, told AFP Thursday.
He also said that the gathering was likely to be closed to the press.
The meeting of the Syrian opposition comes amid difficulties in forming a united front, with the resignation on March 14 of three members from the SNC, followed by the creation of a new coalition of five small opposition groups three days later.
SNC Mahmoud Osman signaled that the Syrian regime opponents will search for a united voice at the Istanbul meeting.
On the first day of April, countries aiming to resolve the Syrian crisis, will meet to discuss ways to help the Syrian opposition and stop the violent crackdown of Assad’s regime.
The first meeting of the “Friends of Syria” was held in Tunis in late February, with participation from around 60 countries, including Western and Arab nations.