The Syrian army has deployed tanks on a ring road surrounding Damascus and shelled southern neighborhoods where opposition forces operate, the heaviest bombardment on the capital since the army reasserted control last month, residents say.

They said on Wednesday that at least eight people were killed in the shelling, which was accompanied by attacks from helicopters, and in ensuing ground raids on the Kfar Souseh, Daraya, Qadam and Nahr Aisha neighborhoods.

"The whole of Damascus is shaking with the sound of shelling," a woman in Kfar Souseh said.

She said the army's artillery was also firing on the capital from the Qasioun and Saraya mountains overlooking Damascus.

Maaz al-Shami, a member of the Damascus Media Office, a group of young opposition activists monitoring the crackdown in Damascus, said opposition forces who had left the city during a fierce army campaign last month had started to return.

"They went back to their homes, or disappeared in the green belt surrounding Damascus," Shami said.

"They are back now, and the regime is responding with daily shelling and helicopter bombardment. A war atmosphere in Damascus is setting in."

The renewed attacks followed what activists said was a bloody raid on the Maadamiya neighborhood on Tuesday.

Funeral targeted

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a London-based anti-government group, said it had documented the names of at least 42 civilians killed in the mixed suburb, which is home to around 200,000 Christians, Alawites and Sunni Muslims.

The SOHR said government troops had targeted a funeral procession, and that dozens of unidentified bodies had been found in a basement as well.

Heavy shelling and clashes also continued on Tuesday across swathes of Aleppo, the country's largest city, as both the regime and opposition forces claim they are gaining ground in the key northern battleground.

At least 24 people were reported to have been killed nationwide on Tuesday, among them women and children in Aleppo, as the Syrian government pressed opposition-held areas.

The Free Syrian Army (FSA) claimed that it controlled almost two-thirds of the city, which has been battered by a month of air strikes, shelling and fighting.

"We now control more than 60 per cent of the city of Aleppo, and each day we take control of new districts," Abdel Jabbar al-Okaidi, a colonel with the FSA, said.

He went on to list about 30 districts which he claimed were under FSA control, including about half of the neighborhood of Salaheddin.

Activists also reported that troops had stormed a town near Damascus, torching homes and shops, while helicopters and war planes strafed several suburbs of the capital, which the regime claimed to have largely recaptured last month.

The violence has also spilled across the border into Lebanon, where 10 people have been killed and more than 60 others wounded in continued clashes between Sunni Muslims and Alawites in the northern city of Tripoli.

Fighters in the Sunni district of Bab al-Tabbaneh and their Alawite rivals in Jebel Mohsen exchanged gun and grenade fire in sporadic fighting overnight on Monday and into the day, despite action by Lebanese army troops deployed in the port city, residents said.

An army statement said soldiers raided buildings used by armed men and "retaliated swiftly against sources of gunfire".
It said five soldiers were wounded on Monday evening and another five, including an officer, were hurt on Tuesday by a hand grenade lobbed at an army base.

Aside from the army casualties, about 35 civilians or fighters were wounded in Bab al-Tabbaneh and 15 in Jebel Mohsen, residents and medics said.

PHOTO CAPTION

Demonstrators protest against Syria's President Bashar al-Assad in Sermada near Idlib August 21, 2012.

Al-Jazeera