Syria bombardment kills 44 in rebel enclave as ground assault looms

HAMMURIYEH, Syria — Heavy Syrian bombardment killed 44 civilians in rebel-held Eastern Ghouta on Monday, as regime forces appeared to prepare for an imminent ground assault.

The escalation came as pro-government forces were expected to enter the northern Kurdish-controlled enclave of Afrin, to take a stand against a month-old Turkish assault there.

Held by rebels since 2012, Eastern Ghouta is the last opposition pocket around Damascus and Syrian President Bashar Assad has dispatched reinforcements there in an apparent bid to retake it.

A barrage of air strikes, rocket fire, and artillery slammed into several towns across Eastern Ghouta on Monday, killing 44 civilians and wounding dozens more.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 20 were killed in air strikes on Hammuriyeh and nine others in bombardment on Saqba. 

The rest were killed when other areas were pounded. Four children were among the dead.

"The regime is bombing Eastern Ghouta to pave the way for a ground offensive," said Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman. 

Residents of Hammuriyeh could be seen rushing inside in a panic as soon as they heard the sound of airplanes. 

Alaa Al Din, a 23-year-old Syrian in Hammuriyeh, said civilians were afraid of a potential government offensive.

"Ghouta's fate is unknown. We've got nothing but God's mercy and hiding out in our basements," he told AFP on Monday.

"There's no alternative."

Shelling also hit the town of Douma, where an AFP correspondent saw five toddlers brought to a hospital, covered in dust and wailing uncontrollably. 

Medics offered them biscuits to calm them down, to no avail. 

Eastern Ghouta is held by two main Islamist factions, but extremists control small pockets including one directly adjacent to the capital. 

The observatory and Syrian daily newspaper Al Watan had said negotiations were under way for the evacuation of jihadists from Eastern Ghouta.

But escalating military pressure indicate that the regime would opt for a ground assault instead of talks, the monitor said.

Government troops carried out a relentless five-day bombing campaign earlier this month that killed around 250 civilians in the enclave and wounded hundreds. 

Around the same time, the monitor said, the regime began dispatching military reinforcements to Eastern Ghouta. 

After days of relative calm, the government sent more than 260 rockets sailing onto Eastern Ghouta on Sunday.

Those rockets, as well as artillery fire and air strikes, killed 17 civilians, said the observatory. 

The regime is keen to regain control of Eastern Ghouta to halt the deadly salvo of rockets and mortars that rebels fire on Damascus.

About half a dozen rockets hit the capital Sunday night, AFP correspondents said. State news agency SANA reported that one person was killed. 

More than 20 civilians have been killed by rebel fire this month alone in regime-held Damascus.

Regime to enter Afrin? 

All was quiet in the capital on Monday but since rumours of an imminent assault on Eastern Ghouta started spreading, people living close to the rebel enclave started packing their bags.

Jawad Al Obros, 30, said he was looking to move to a hotel in the western sector of the city to escape his home in an east Damascus neighbourhood that has been regularly hit by rockets from Ghouta.

"We're tired of this situation. It seems that there's no solution but a full-blown military one," he told AFP. 

More than 340,000 people have been killed since Syria's conflict erupted in 2011 with protests against Assad's government. 

It has since evolved into a war that has carved up the country into rival zones of influence among the regime, rebels, extremists, and Kurdish forces. 

The Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) control the northwestern region of Afrin, target of a month-old assault by the Turkish army and allied Syrian rebels. 

Turkey sees the YPG as a "terror" group linked to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), outlawed by Ankara, and wants to clear it from its southern border. 

The YPG has controlled Afrin since 2012, when Syrian troops withdrew from it and other Kurdish-majority areas. 

Syrian state media said Monday that pro-regime forces were preparing to enter the area to "join the resistance against the Turkish aggression".

Speaking during a visit to Jordan, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu warned against any bid by the Syrian regime to help the YPG.

"If the regime is entering [Afrin] to oust the PKK, YPG, there is no problem. But if they are entering to protect the YPG, then no one can stop us and Turkish soldiers," Cavusoglu said.