Assad forces continue to pound Damascus

There has been no let up in violence in Syria with parts of the capital, Damascus, under fire for a second day, activists have said.

"Mortar shelling resumed in the early morning," the Local Coordination Committees (LCC), a grassroots network of activists, said on Monday.

The military offensive on Monday reportedly continued to batter several neighbourhoods in the capital, including Tadamon, Kfar Souseh, Nahr Aisha and Sidi Qadad.

The LCC added that regime troops and rebel fighters of the Free Syrian Army also clashed in the western Damascus district of Kfar Souseh.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported "dawn battles on the road south of Kfar Souseh, between rebel fighters and soldiers who were in a convoy passing through the area".

"I did not sleep all night," a resident of nearby Jaramana told the AFP news agency. "It was a real war zone."

To the north, regime forces raided the central city of Hama, scene of fierce clashes and a series of loud blasts, the Observatory said.The town of Qatana, 20km away from the capital, was also shelled on Monday. Elsewhere, regime troops shelled the besieged Homs districts of Khaldiyeh, Jourat al-Shiah and Qarabees.

The government remains defiant, insisting it is defending its people and sovereignty.

The reports of violence came as UN envoy to Syria Kofi Annan arrived in Moscow to holf talks with Russian leaders.

Ahead of his meeting with Annana, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov accused the West of using blackmail to secure a new UN Security Council resolution.

He said the Western threats to discontinue the 300-strong UN unarmed observer mission to Syria if Russia does not agree to allow the West to use force in the country amounts to blackmail.

Meanwhile, Morocco has asked Syria's ambassador to Rabat to leave the country, the foreign ministry said on Monday.

The Syrian government in a tit-for-tat response declared the Moroccan envoy to Damascus as persona non grata and asked him to leave.

'Civil war'

As the attacks on residential areas in Damascus continued, the International Committee of the Red Cross has said it now considers the Syrian conflict a civil war.

The Geneva-based group's assessment could have implications for prosecutions for war crimes and means that international humanitarian law applies throughout the country, though it will have little effect on the ground. Also known as the rules of war, humanitarian law grants all parties in a conflict the right to use appropriate force to achieve their aims.

"We are now talking about a non-international armed conflict in the country," ICRC spokesman Hicham Hassan said on Sunday.

Previously, the Red Cross committee had restricted its assessment of the scope of the conflict to the hotspots of Idlib, Homs and Hama. But Hassan said the organisation concluded that the violence was widening.

"Hostilities have spread to other areas of the country," Hassan said. "International humanitarian law applies to all areas where hostilities are taking place."

Josh Lockman, an international law professor at the University of Southern California, said the assessment does not make any significant difference on the ground, but is "of tremendous significance for the long term".

"With this application of international humanitarian law to the conflict, key regime officials could be held responsible for both massacres against civilians and also for the treatment of captured combatants, in this case rebel fighters, to the degree they're abused, harmed or killed," he told Al Jazeera.

Syria's denial over Tremseh

Although the armed uprising in Syria began more than a year ago, the committee had hesitated to call it a civil war - though others, including United Nations officials, have done so.

That is because the rules of war override and to some extent suspend the laws that apply in peacetime, including the universal right to life, right to free speech and right to peaceful assembly.

The rules impose limits on how fighting may be conducted, so as to protect civilians and ex-combatants not taking part in the hostilities.

The UNSMIS released a video report from Tremseh

They require the humane treatment of all people in enemy hands and the duty to care for the wounded and sick. It also
means parties to the internal conflict are entitled to attack military targets, but not civilians or civilian property.

Meanwhile, Syria has denied accusations by special envoy Kofi Annan that state forces used heavy weapons or helicopters in clashes in the village of Tremseh last week, where activists said there was a massacre of more than 100 people.

Jihad Makdissi, spokesman for the foreign ministry, said on Sunday that security forces killed 37 fighters and two civilians in a campaign against the village, from which the government said rebels were launching attacks on other areas.

But a freelance photojournalist who visited Tremseh after Thursday's assault told Al Jazeera that he "found obvious proof of heavy weapons".

A UN Supervision Mission in Syria (UNSMIS) entered Tremseh on Sunday for a second day to assess the casualties and damage in the village.