[An Nahar] Syrian security forces on Monday killed 30 people across the country, activists said, following unprecedented pre-dawn deadly festivities in the heart of the capital Damascus...Capital of the last remaining Baathist regime in the world...
Nine people were killed in Deir al-Zour, six in Daraa, three in Hama, three in Idlib, three in Aleppo
...For centuries, Aleppo was Greater Syria's largest city and the Ottoman Empire's third, after Constantinople and Cairo. Although relatively close to Damascus in distance, Aleppans regard Damascenes as country cousins...
, three in the Damascus suburbs of Qatana and Douma, two in al-Qameshli and one in Homs, the Local Coordination Committees, the main activist group spurring protests on the ground, said.
Pre-dawn fighting in a heavily guarded area of Damascus, the capital's fiercest since a revolt against Assad's regime erupted a year ago, came as residents still reeled from deadly weekend bombings.
At least three rebels and a member of the security forces were killed in the upscale western neighborhood of Mazzeh, state television
... and if you can't believe state television who can you believe?
and monitors reported.
"Three bad boyz were potted and a fourth was tossed in the clink in the fighting between security forces and an armed terrorist gang sheltered in a house of a residential district," the television channel said.
Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said four rebels were killed. The fighters fired a rocket-propelled grenade at the home of a top army officer as they brought the conflict to the capital, he said.
Murtada Rashid, an activist in Damascus, said blasts and heavy shooting could be heard in Mazzeh and two other districts, Qaboon and Arbin.
A Qaboon resident who did not wish to be identified said "we woke up at 3:00 am (0100 GMT) to the sound of heavy machinegun fire and rocket-propelled grenades."
In Mazzeh, which is overlooked by Assad's clifftop presidential palace and home to several embassies, terrified locals were woken by the rattle of gunfire. "We were very scared," one told Agence La Belle France Presse.
A mission sent by U.N.-Arab League
...an organization of Arabic-speaking states with 22 member countries and four observers. The League tries to achieve Arab consensus on issues, which usually leaves them doing nothing but a bit of grimacing and mustache cursing...
special envoy Kofi Annan
...Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh and so far the worst Secretary-General of the UN. Annan and the UN were the co-recipients of the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize for something or other that probably sounded good at the time. In December 2004, reports surfaced that Kofi's son Kojo received payments from the Swiss company Cotecna, which had won a lucrative contract under the UN Oil-for-Food Program. Kofi Annan called for an investigation to look into the allegations, which stirred up the expected cesspool but couldn't seem to come up with enough evidence to indict Kofi himself, or even Kojo...arrived in Damascus for talks on a monitoring operation to end the conflict that monitors say has cost more than 9,100 lives since last March.
Monday's festivities in the capital came after twin car booms destroyed two neighborhoods of Damascus on Saturday, killing 27 people, according to the interior ministry.
An Observatory statement said fresh fighting broke out between rebels and security forces in the Qaboon and Barzeh areas of Damascus.
Troops backed by dozens of tanks also raided districts of Deir Ezzor city in eastern Syria, the Observatory said, a day after at least 25 army deserters were killed in seizing its Hamidiyeh district.
Five soldiers, including two officers, were also killed, it said.
In central Syria, soldiers bombarded the Bab Sbaa, Khalidiyeh and Karm al-Shami districts of Homs, which has been relentlessly pounded since early February, the monitoring group said.
Troops in the northwestern province of Idlib attacked Abdita, home village of defector Colonel Riyadh Asaad, head of the Turkey-based rebel Free Syrian Army, local activist Nurredin al-Abdo told AFP.