Syrian opposition fighters and troops fought fierce battles over a deeply contested neighborhood of Homs on Tuesday, as fresh clashes broke out on the road linking Damascus to its international airport.

The fighting in Homs centered around the districts of Khaldiyeh and Baba Amr. It comes after a large army and pro-regime militia offensive which aimed to reclaim these areas from the Free Syrian Army.

Regime forces backed by tanks pounded the neighborhood, according to activists.

Opposition fighters launched a counter-offensive on Sunday in a bid to retake Babr Amr, which sparked a heavy battle where the Syrian military launched artillery attacks and waves of air strikes.
“Rebels and troops are fighting on the edges of Baba Amr. The clashes are fiercest around Brazil street, and the army is intermittently bombing the district,” said Observatory, which relies on a network of activists, doctors and lawyers for its reporting.

Elsewhere in Syria, fresh clashes broke out on the road to the Damascus International Airport, southeast of the capital on the edges of Beit Sahem and Jaramana after mortar shells fell in the neighborhood of Bab Sharqi in Old Damascus the night before, that killed and wounded more than 30 civilians.

Insurgents have for months tried to seize control of the road leading to the airport, but have continually been pushed back by regime forces.

In the capital, fighting erupted on Tuesday in the eastern district of Jobar, whose outer edges are in the hands of opposition fighters.

Intensified battles between the two sides have reached Syria’s second largest International airport in Aleppo, in Syria’s northwest. In an attempt to gain a hold over the airport and its surrounding military bases.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said clashes erupted anew on Tuesday around the airport. Opposition fighters have been trying to seize the strategic facility for weeks.

Syria’s two-year conflict has left some 70,000 people dead, and more than one million refugees across neighboring countries.