DAMASCUS, Dec 15: Syrian warplanes bombed insurgents east of Damascus on Saturday and government forces pounded a town to the southwest, activists said, in a month-long and so far fruitless campaign to dislodge rebels around the capital.

Jets bombarded the Beit Sahm district on the road leading to the international airport and the army fired rockets at several rebel strongholds around Damascus, President Bashar al-Assad's bastion through 21 months of an increasingly bloody uprising. The 47-year-old Alawite leader, forced on the defensive by the rebels, has resorted increasingly to air strikes and artillery to stem their advances on the ground.

Nato’s US commander also accused his forces on Friday of firing Scud missiles that landed near the Turkish border, in explaining why the western alliance was sending anti-missile batteries and troops to Syria's northern frontier.

The Syrian government denies firing such long-range, Soviet-built rockets. But Admiral James Stavridis wrote in a blog that a handful of Scud missiles were launched inside Syria in recent days towards opposition targets and “several landed fairly close to the Turkish border, which is very worrisome”.—Reuters