Syrian Troops Assault Rebel Bastions Near Damascus

Syrian troops mounted an assault on rebel bastions along the highway to the international airport near Damascus, amid a widespread telecommunications outage, with state media reporting the road was "secured."

Syrian rebels celebrate next to the remains of a Syrian government fighter jet which was shot down at Daret Ezza, on the border between the provinces of Idlib and Aleppo, on November 28. Syrian troops mounted an assault on rebel bastions along the highway to the international airport near Damascus, amid a widespread telecommunications outage, with state media reporting the road was "secured."

Meanwhile, as UN envoy Lakhdar Brahimi hinted that President Bashar al-Assad would have to step down to allow for a new Syria, a monitoring group said a government air raid on the northern city of Aleppo killed at least 15 civilians.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the army attacked bastions in a string of towns along the highway and near the airport

The fighting around the capital, which came after Internet links went down across Syria, prompted EgyptAir and Emirates to announce the cancellation of flights to Damascus.

Official media said several members of an "armed terrorist group, Al-Nusra Front," had been killed in the town of Aqraba.

Two Austrian soldiers with a UN force on the Golan were injured after their convoy was shot at on the road to the airport, the foreign ministry in Vienna said.

A ministry spokesman said one soldier was shot in the arm, and the other in the shoulder, but both were quickly treated.

Austrian Foreign Minister Michael Spindelegger instructed his country's embassy in Damascus to file a protest with the government and the Syrian ambassador in Vienna was to be summoned to the foreign ministry.

"Syria is responsible for the safety of our UNDOF soldiers and must ensure that they can fulfil their international mandate," Spindelegger said.

In Syria, state state television, quoting a foreign ministry source, blamed the shootings on rebels.

"At around 12 noon (1000 GMT), and while a terrorist armed group was firing towards an army post in the area of Aqraba, the shots hit a vehicule of UNDOF, leading to the injury of two members of those forces," it said.

As activists warned that sudden communication cuts are often a signal of imminent military offensives, US technology companies Akamai and Renesys, which monitor web traffic, said the country was cut off from the Internet.

In Damascus, users said both Internet and mobile telephone...