Excerpt
SUMMARY: Independent estimates say 20,000 have died since the Syrian uprising began. Now, U.N. monitors have left, failing to stop the violence. Jeffrey Brown reports. Then Margaret Warner talks to the Guardian's Ghaith Adbul-Ahad, who has been following Syrian rebels on the ground as they struggle to hold government troops at bay.
JEFFREY BROWN (Newshour): "It was just another regular day in Damascus," the words of a resident of the Syrian capital where, on this day, shelling and clashes were intense.
Government forces backed by tanks and helicopters attacked an area just outside the city and the last of the United Nations military observers left the city, unable to stem the violence.
Thick black smoke billowed above the Daraya suburb of Damascus today, as Bashar al-Assad's military pounded parts of the capital. Elements loyal to Assad were said to be going house to house in search of regime opponents.
By late morning, an opposition group said more than 70 people had been killed, a claim impossible to verify.
The offensive is part of a renewed government campaign that began yesterday against neighborhoods in and around Damascus, where the rebellion has proven resilient. Among those caught in the crossfire, five children and their mother, reportedly killed by government shelling, their bodies wrapped and laid in repose beneath a minaret in Daraya.
According to independent estimates, 20,000 people have now died since the Syrian uprising began 18 months ago. Today, the country's deputy foreign minister blamed regional actors and the West for what has become civil war.
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