Fresh clashes in Syrian capital and Aleppo

Fierce clashes broke out before dawn on Monday between Syrian troops and rebels in the capital Damascus and in Syria's second city Aleppo, a watchdog and residents said. Fighting had erupted Sunday night in the capital's southern districts of Al-Hajar Al-Aswad and Tadamun, on the periphery of the Yarmuk Palestinian camp, and renewed at dawn on Monday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. "There were multiple coordinated attacks on military posts in the area before dawn. Clashes ensued and factions of Palestinian fighters joined in on both sides," Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP. He noted that many residents of Tadamun and Al-Hajar Al-Aswad have moved to the Yarmuk camp for a safer haven amid the fighting. In Aleppo, fighting broke out around a roundabout at the northwest entrance to the city in the Zahraa district and on the Aleppo airport road southeast of the metropolis. Also in Zahraa, a fire broke out at at a building close to the air force intelligence branch amid shelling attacks on the area, according to the Britain-based Observatory, which relies on a network of activists, lawyers and medics on the ground. A pharmacist living in the Shahba district just south of Zahraa, said the clashes were the worst he had heard since fighting broke out in the area. "It's been almost one week that we are living in terror at night. We hear everything -- gun battles, tank shelling, explosions. We were so afraid that we moved my sons from their room to the inside of the house," Samir, 37, told AFP. "The clashes before dawn today were the worst all week. They just stopped for one or two hours at midnight and then started up again." "I know some of my neighbours who fled the area and some others are thinking to leave because the situation is getting worse. The noises are getting louder every day," he said.