A tank bearing two Syrian independence flags at a narrow intersection of trash-strewn streets fired a booming round at an unseen target. A handful of rebel fighters shot machine guns as they darted back and forth between the tank and pock-marked buildings amid a steady volley of bullets.
The scene, captured on video published Wednesday to several Syrian opposition YouTube channels, including Sham News Network and Ugarit News, and said to be from the city of Homs, provided a view of the pitched battles raging between government soldiers and rebel forces connected with the independent Free Syrian Army.
Another video of the same intersection showed the tank on the move.
Video channels for activists opposed to President Bashar al-Assad were once filled primarily with clips of peaceful protests and the government’s often brutal response. As the 11-month uprising has entered a bloody stage in recent weeks, they have begun to add videos that have the look of a street war between heavily armed adversaries.
Fighting also flared up again outside the capital, Damascus. Earlier this week Syrian army troops appeared to have succeeded in pushing back rebel forces in the surrounding suburbs. There was heavy fighting on Wednesday in the towns of Deir Qanoun and Ein al-Fija, The Associated Press was told by activists, who gave varying casualty figures, ranging from 6 to 17 deaths, from the battles near Zabadani, a resort town and opposition stronghold.
The crackle of gunfire and thick smoke can be seen in video posted to Sham News Network on Wednesday and said to be from
Deir Qanoun in the mountainous northwestern suburbs of Damascus.
Further video posted to the same YouTube channel showed the extent of damage after battles in the same town. It was not immediately clear whether this video was shot before or after the one above.
A Google map annotated by the Enduring America blog highlighted areas of reported fighting outside the capital on Wednesday:
View Damascus, 2012 Feb 1 in a larger map
A Syrian activist near the area told The Guardian that a “huge, huge number” of troops belonging to the government’s Republican Guard forces were invading the valley of Wadi Barada with tanks, and they were “bombing two cities,” Basemah and Deir Qanoun. The activist, Emad Mahou of the Syrian Revolution Coordinators Union, said that the army was rounding up “martyrs and wanted men” and shooting them.
As my colleague Dan Bilefsky reports, many of the rebel fighters are former soldiers. Human rights groups estimate that roughly 5,000 have defected. Some say they were driven to leave because of what they described as the atrocities committed by government forces.
President Assad visited wounded soldiers in Damascus on Tuesday and encouraged them in their recovery, according a report and video from the state-run Sana news agency. The wounded army members “underlined that they are waiting for the end of treatment to return to their posts in order to perform their duty in defending the Homeland,” the report said.
SanaSyria’s state-run media distributed photos on Wednesday of President Assad visiting wounded soldiers.Another video of Mr. Assad posted to Facebook on Wednesday appeared to show the Syrian leader and his wife at the hospital bedside of a young man who was not shown in the official video above. The timing, location or origin of the video, posted to a Facebook page under Mr. Assad’s name but not connected to him, could not be immediately verified.