Forces kill 5 in assault on Damascus suburbs

AMMAN: Syrian government forces killed at least five civilians on Sunday in an attack to take back large suburbs of the capital Damascus that had fallen under rebel control, activists said.

Around 2,000 soldiers in buses and armoured personnel carriers, along with at least 50 tanks and armoured vehicles moved at dawn into the eastern Ghouta area on the edge of Damascus to reinforce troops surrounding the suburbs of Saqba, Hammouriya and Kfar Batnba, they said.