Syrian air force jets have bombarded rebel targets close to the Damascus airport road and a regional airline said foreign carriers had halted flights to the capital. Activists said security forces clashed with rebels around Aqraba and Babilla districts on the southeastern outskirts of Damascus which lead to the international airport.
Internet connections and most telephone lines were down for a second day, the worst communications outage in a 20-month-old uprising in which 40,000 people have been killed and hundreds of thousands forced to flee the country.
A spokesman for a rebel Military Council in Damascus, Musaab Abu Qitada, said they were trying to “liberate” the airport to stop planes they said were delivering arms to the government.