Watchdog: Syrian regime has stepped up Homs offensive

Homs is home to around 150,000 Palestinians Syria's air force launched new raids on rebel-held towns east of Damascus on Friday, after clashes raged on the edges of a Palestinian refugee camp in the capital, a watchdog said .
The army pounded opposition-held areas of battered Homs in central Syria, as it stepped up a campaign to reclaim areas of "the capital of the revolution," said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
"Warplanes made several air strikes on towns and villages in the Eastern Ghouta region" near Damascus, said the Britain-based Observatory, which relies on a network of activists, doctors and lawyers across Syria for its reporting.
Eastern Ghouta is home to some of the rebel Free Syrian Army's best organised and fiercest groups.
Clashes pitting rebels against troops raged overnight on the edges of the Yarmuk refugee camp, which has seen frequent violence in the past few weeks, especially since two air raids in mid-December.
Once home to some 150,000 Palestinians, Yarmuk now also acts as a makeshift refuge for hundreds of Syrians fleeing violence elsewhere in the country.
"But it is no longer a safe place. Thousands of people have left the camp, Palestinians and Syrians, in search of another refuge," said Abu Omair, an activist from Damascus.
Friday's violence came a day after at least 98 people were killed across the country, among them 33 civilians, 26 soldiers and 39 rebel fighters, said the watchdog.
In Homs, the army shelled the Juret al-Shiyah and Khaldiyeh neighbourhoods, which have been bombarded frequently since the outbreak of the anti-regime revolt in March 2011, said the Observatory.
Much of Juret al-Shiyah, like many areas of Homs city, has been levelled, Homs residents say.
Fighting raged on the edges of the districts, as the army continued to push to reclaim insurgent-held areas in the strategic city, which lays on the route linking Damascus to the sea.
Meanwhile on Thursday, a jihadist suicide attacker killed at least eight military intelligence troops, said the Observatory.
"At least eight military intelligence troops were killed in a suicide bomb attack by an Al-Nusra Front fighter in the town of Saasaa," in Damascus province, it said.
Others were critically injured in the attack staged by an organisation listed by the United States as a "terrorist" group.
State news agency SANA confirmed the attack. It blamed "terrorists", but did not elaborate on the number of casualties.
More than 6,400 Syrian refugees have fled to Jordan's Zaatari camp in the past 24 hours, bringing to over 30,000 the number of arrivals since the start of the month, the UN refugee agency said.
"Jordan has experienced a record number of refugees crossing," UNHCR spokeswoman Melissa Fleming told reporters in Geneva, noting that December's influx totalled 16,413.
The new arrivals bring the total population of the sprawling camp that opened last July to some 65,000.
"Only yesterday (Thursday), 4,400 Syrian refugees arrived in Zaatari camp, and a further 2,000 arrived during the course of the night," Fleming said.
"Staff in Zaatari are working day and night shifts to respond to the new arrivals and the growing needs of the refugees in the camp," she said.
Fleming explained that most new arrivals were women, children and elderly and that conditions in the camp were difficult.
"It is with great sadness that we report the death of three refugee children this week" in the camp, she said, noting that a two-year-old and a two-month-old had died shortly after arriving at the camp, while a two-day-old baby died following an emergency delivery.
She said UNHCR was working with the Jordanian government to prepare a second major camp called the Halabat camp near Zaatari to take some of the pressure off that camp.
"We hope to open it by the end of the month," she said, adding that up to 5,000 people would initially be housed at the new camp, with plans to boost that number to 30,000.
Jordan says it is hosting more than 300,000 Syrian refugees, while the UNHCR says 206,630 of them have been registered or are in the process of being registered.
The United Nations has predicted that the number of Syrian refugees in neighbouring countries will double to 1.1 million by June if the civil war in Syria does not end.
More than 60,000 people have been killed in the Syrian conflict which erupted in March 2011.