Refugee camp bombed week after UK strikes
The Syrian Army has stepped up its assault on rebelheld areas of the country, including a refugee camp.
The move comes just a week after US, British and French air strikes on Syria, which has been accused of launching a chemical weapons attack that killed up to 75 people.
Airstrikes and shelling hit the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp and al-Hajar al-Aswad areas of the country close to the Damascus.
They are the last areas outside government control near to the country’s capital.
Live state television footage of the area showed a plume of dark smoke billowing across one district as guns boomed in the distance.
The UN’s refugee agency has warned that the spiralling violence was a threat to 12,000 Palestinian refugees still there.
Militants were given the option to stay and reconcile with the government or leave on buses to IS-held territory in the eastern Syrian desert.
Meanwhile, rebels have also started to evacuate three towns in the eastern Qalamoun region in the Damascus countryside, according to Syrian state media.
Several buses left the towns of Ruhaiba, Jayroud and al-Nasriya carrying hundreds of rebels and their families to opposition territory in north Syria, said Al-Ikhbariya TV.
The station said there could be 3,200 rebels leaving three towns in an evacuation that will take three days.