ALEPPO, Syria, Aug 4, (Agencies): The Syrian army said Saturday it had seized the last rebel-held district of the capital Damascus as insurgents in the strategic northern city of Aleppo came under heavy bombardment by regime forces.

At least 112 people, including women, children and dissident soldiers, were killed on Saturday in attacks by pro-regime security and army forces, according to an opposition group.

The latest fatalities were mostly reported from Damascus, Damascus suburbs, Deir Al-Zour, Aleppo, Hama, Idleb, Homs, Deraa and Latakia, the Syrian opposition Local Coordination Committee (LCC) said.

Several Syrian civilians were also injured in attacks by pro-government troops in a number of Syrian towns and neighborhoods, primaily Al-Zabdani and Deir Al-Zour, the LCC added.

Meanwhile, a mass graveyard was discovered in Damascus suburb on Saturday, Syria’s official news agency (SANA) reported.

It added that an armed group had committed a horrible mascre killing 20 civilians and troops in Damascus suburb.

The army said it had retaken the hold-out rebel district of Tadamun in Damascus, a day after the United Nations deplored the failure of diplomacy to end a conflict that has reportedly claimed more than 21,000 lives in nearly 17 months.

A brigadier general who refused to give his name told journalists visiting the neighbourhood of Tadamun, the scene of heavy fighting earlier, that it has been retaken, and that the military controls all of the capital.

“We have cleansed all the districts of Damascus, from Al-Midan to Mazzeh, from Al-Hajar Al-Aswad to Qadam... to Tadamun,” said the officer.

He said it was the last rebel bastion in the capital to be retaken.

“There is no more presence of armed groups apart for some individuals who are moving from one place to another, just to prove that they exist,” he said.

Fighting erupted in Damascus on July 15 and raged for several days as rebels seized several districts, forcing thousands of residents to flee.

In Aleppo, Abdel Jabar Oqaida, commander of the Free Syrian Army there, said the Salaheddin district had “come under the heaviest bombardment since the battle began” on July 20 but that loyalists had “not managed to advance.”

In what is also a war of words, a senior government security figure said “the battle for Aleppo has not yet begun, and what is happening now is just the appetizer.”

“The main course will come later,” he warned.

More than a week ago, a pro-government newspaper was already proclaiming what was to be the “mother of all battles” in Aleppo.

And earlier this week, a security official said troops were “testing the terrorists’ defence systems before annihilating them by carrying out a surgical operation.”

The security official on Saturday said more reinforcements had arrived and that at least 20,000 troops were now on the ground.

“The other side are also sending reinforcements,” the official added of the rebels, who claim to have seized half the city since they poured in two weeks ago.

Because of restrictions on the free movement of journalists in Syria, none of the claims can be verified.

Violence

Echoing UN chief Ban Ki-moon’s remarks on Thursday that violence was intensifying, a watchdog said July was the deadliest month since the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad’s regime erupted in March 2011.
Rami Abdel Rahman who heads the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 4,239 people, the vast majority civilians, died in July, bringing the overall toll since March 2011 to more than 21,000.
“The death toll is escalating,” Abdel Rahman said.
Explosions shook Aleppo as fighter jets and helicopter gunships overflew the city and rebels tried to storm the state television building before being driven back by shelling, said the Britain-based Observatory.
State media said the army defended the site from “mercenary terrorist groups.”
The violence killed at least 67 people across Syria on Saturday, including at least eight in Aleppo province, the Observatory said. It said 42 civilians, 18 soldiers and seven rebels were killed.
On Friday, a day after UN and Arab League envoy Kofi Annan resigned in frustration over the failure of an April peace plan to take hold, Ban warned world powers they must overcome their rivalries to put an end to a “proxy war” in Syria.
And the UN General Assembly voted overwhelmingly to condemn the Security Council for its failure to act and it condemned the Syrian regime for using heavy weapons.
Ban said growing radicalisation and extremism had been predicted at the start of the uprising, as had been a “proxy war, with regional and international players arming one side or the other.”
After the General Assembly vote, US Ambassador Susan Rice said that, “despite the continued opposition of an increasingly isolated minority, the overwhelming majority of UN members clearly stands resolutely with the Syrian people.”
That was an allusion to Russia and China, who voted against the resolution and who had already vetoed three Security Council resolutions on Syria.
But Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said the assembly gave “blatant” support to Syrian rebels and that its backers were the countries providing “mercenaries and arms” to the opposition.
China’s deputy ambassador, Wang Min, said pressuring only Damascus would “cause further escalation of the turmoil and let the crisis spill over to other countries in the region.”
On Saturday, senior foreign ministry official Wang Kejian accused countries that oppose its position of pursuing their own geopolitical interests and “trying to hinder or even undermine the political settlement process.”
France’s UN ambassador, Gerard Araud, said Paris would use its presidency of the Security Council to push for humanitarian aid for Syrians, warning Russian and Chinese intransigence could lead to “a final disaster.”
While political progress “will be difficult,” he said things can be done “on the humanitarian front because, above and beyond the deadlock on the Security Council or the resignation of Annan, there is the suffering of the Syrians.”
In other developments on Saturday, Qatar said Arab states will not accept a replacement for Annan unless the nominee’s mandate is to clearly negotiate a transfer of power in Syria.
Kidnapped
Forty-eight Iranian pilgrims were kidnapped from a bus in the Syrian capital on Saturday, their embassy’s consular chief in Damascus told Iran’s state television.
“Armed terrorist groups kidnapped 48 Iranian pilgrims on their way to the airport,” Majid Kamjou told the IRIB network, which gave the report on its website.
“There are no reports about the fate of the pilgrims. The embassy and Syrian officials are trying to trace the kidnappers,” he said.
Syria’s state news agency SANA later gave the same account, without giving a number for those kidnapped, and added that “authorities are working to resolve the situation.”
Hundreds of thousands of Iranians travel each year to Syria to visit a Shiite pilgrimage site, the Shrine of Zaynab, in Damascus.
Tehran is the staunchest ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, whose forces are locked in a bloody conflict in Damascus and other cities against rebels his regime describes as “terrorists”.
Several dozen Iranian pilgrims and engineers were abducted in December and January, with most being released months later.
Many of the rebels come from Syria’s Sunni majority, which is hostile to the support Shiite Iran has shown to the regime of Assad, whose family is Alawite, a Shiite offshoot.
Deadliest
Last month was the deadliest in Syria since a revolt erupted in March last year, with about 1,000 people killed each week, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Saturday.
“In July, at least 4,239 people were killed across Syria,” Rami Abdel Rahman, the director of the Britain-based watchdog, told AFP.
The figure includes 3,001 civilians — among them civilians who have taken up arms — as well as 1,133 government troops and 105 army defectors.
Violence has escalated dramatically in Syria as clashes have broken out in Damascus and the country’s commercial capital Aleppo.
“The death toll is escalating,” said Abdel Rahman, noting that in June, a total of 2,917 people were killed.
“June 2012 was the second-bloodiest month in the revolt,” he said. “If we compare that with the 989 killed in the month following the start of the truce on April 12, we see that there has been a clear escalation in violence.”
In total, at least 21,053 people died in violence across Syria since March last year, among them 14,710 civilians — including those who joined the armed insurgency — along with 5,363 troops and 980 defectors.
“The total number does not include the thousands of detainees whose fates we know nothing about,” said Abdel Rahman. “Nor does it include those reported dead, but whose identities have been impossible to verify.”
It is not possible to verify death tolls out of Syria, and the United Nations has stopped keeping a count of the victims.
Executed
Syrian television presenter Mohammed al-Saeed, kidnapped from his Damascus home in mid-July, has been executed, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Saturday.
“The television presenter, a well-known figure on state TV, has been executed, and the Al-Nusra Front has claimed responsibility for the killing,” the Observatory’s Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP.
Al-Nusra, a little-known Islamist militant group, claimed the kidnapping and execution of Saeed in a statement on Friday.
“The heroes of western Ghouta (in Damascus province) imprisoned the shabih (pro-regime militia) presenter on July 19,” said Al-Nusra. “He was then killed after he had been interrogated.”
Posted on a forum featuring the Al-Qaeda flag, Al-Nusra’s statement showed a photograph of Saeed looking frightened, with his back against a wall in an unknown location.
“May this be a lesson to all those who support the regime,” it said.
Contacted by AFP, state TV director Maan Saleh said: “We have no material proof of this killing.”
Last month, international media rights watchdog Reporters Without Borders issued a statement on Saeed’s kidnapping, and urged his captors to release him.
“News media and journalists — both professional and citizen journalists — should not be targeted by any of the parties in a war or civil war,” it said at the time.
Fled
About 650 Syrians, including a defecting brigadier general, have fled to Turkey in the past 24 hours amid the escalating violence in Syria, a Turkish official said on Saturday.
The latest group brought the number of Syrian refugees in Turkey to 46,000, said the official, who requested anonymity.
The official declined to give the exact number of defected generals currently in Turkey, saying that some had been going back across the border to join in the fight against Bashar al-Assad’s regime.
They are estimated to be more than 20.
Senior Syrian officers have been crossing into Turkey to link up with the rebel Free Syrian Army on a near daily basis in recent months, often accompanied by rank-and-file troops.
In addition to taking in refugees, Turkey is also sheltering Syrian military defectors in a separate camp near the border where security is tighter.
Refugees
The European Union called on Lebanon Saturday not to send Syrian refugees back across the border, expressing concern that they were not being protected and could face torture if forced to return.
A statement issued on behalf of the top EU diplomat, Catherine Ashton, said she was “concerned by the recent reports of expulsion by the Lebanese authorities of Syrian nationals to Syria.”
“Today Syria is in a situation where people’s lives are at risk across the country, including well documented reports of torture,” the statement said.
“Lebanon must ensure that no deportation takes place outside the framework of its international obligations, and that effective and transparent procedures are in place, in consultation with all appropriate domestic and international organisations...”
The EU noted Beirut had given assurances with regard to respect for its international obligations and had extended support to those fleeing the violence in Syria.
“The EU is assisting the Lebanese authorities in addressing the constraints and challenges this situation places on the country, in terms of rule of law, protection, safety and security, social and economic development,” it said.
“The EU reiterates expectations concerning the responsibility of the Lebanese authorities to continue to provide protection, in line with the principle of non-refoulement,” it added.
On Wednesday Lebanon deported 14 Syrians despite the raging violence over the border, drawing criticism from human rights activists.
The Lebanese authorities said the reasons for the expulsions were not political but a Human Rights Watch representative in Beirut said some of the deportees had expressed feared of persecution on their return.
One of them might be a political activist, an HRW representative said, noting that the detainee had contacted HRW prior to being handed over to Syrian authorities at the border and expressed fear about what might happen to him.
But a Lebanese security official told AFP that those deported were wanted for common law not political offences.