By Peter Graff
BEIRUT | Sat Jan 5, 2013 12:07pm EST
(
Reuters) - The Syrian army fired rockets at a Damascus district on Saturday, trying to drive out insurgents fighting their way closer to the seat of President Bashar al-Assad's power.
As fighting that has killed 60,000 persists in the 21-month uprising turned civil war, Syria's deputy foreign minister visited
Iran on Saturday, seeking to maintain the support of Assad's main regional ally.
Iran's Fars news agency said Faisal al-Makdad would meet President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and other Iranian officials.
Government forces fired rockets at Jobar, a Sunni enclave close to the centre of Damascus, a day after bombarding Daraya, a suburb in the east and part of a crescent of rebel-held areas on the outskirts, said Housam, an activist in the capital.
"The shelling began in the early hours of the morning, it has intensified since 11 a.m., and now it has become really heavy. Yesterday it was Daraya and today Jobar is the hottest spot in Damascus," he said by Skype.
Western countries have so far shown no appetite for military engagement in
Syria of the sort that helped oust Libya's Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, but NATO is sending U.S. and European Patriot surface-to-air missile batteries to the Turkish-Syrian border.
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