Syrian army soldiers take control of the village of Western Dumayna north of the rebel-held city of Qusayr on Monday, May 13. Syrian troops captured three villages in Homs province, allowing them to cut supply lines to rebels inside Qusayr town, a military officer told AFP. Tensions in Syria first flared in March 2011 during the onset of the Arab Spring, eventually escalating into a civil war that still rages. This gallery contains the most compelling images taken since the start of the conflict.
Are you in Tremseh in Hama province? Send photos and stories to CNN iReport.
(CNN) -- Increasing violence in the Syrian capital is pointing toward a major fight ahead, a rebel spokesman told CNN Monday.
"The battle for Damascus is coming," said Abdulhameed Zakaria, a Syrian army colonel and doctor who defected and joined the opposition Free Syrian Army in Istanbul.
Video from the capital on Monday showed regime tanks in some streets and clashes with members of the opposition.
Video from activists in the central Damascus neighborhood of Medan showed people running and screaming amid loud sounds. It was unclear whether the blasts were gunshots or mortar fire.
Another video shows rebel fighters facing off against what appears to be a tank in the southern Damascus neighborhood of Tadamon, firing rifles, a heavy machine gun and a rocket-propelled grenade. They shoot at it repeatedly from behind a barricade down a rubble-strewn street, only to have a man tell them to stop wasting ammunition.
The Red Cross declares the conflict in Syria to be a "non-international armed conflict."
A Syrian ambassador defects
Witness to slaughter in Syria
'Syria has become a schizophrenic place'
CNN cannot independently confirm the authenticity of the videos. Meanwhile, state-run TV showed a woman driving a car in Medan saying there was "nothing going on right now."
Asked about reports that there was shelling in Medan, she responded, "No, nothing is happening, thank God." But apparent gunfire could be heard in the background as she spoke.
With violence spreading throughout the country, the Red Cross announced that the conflict is a civil war throughout the country.
The declaration officially applies the Geneva Conventions to violence throughout the country. International humanitarian law now applies "wherever hostilities take place," the organization said Monday.
The Red Cross does not use the general term "civil war," and instead declares a "noninternational armed conflict." In April, the organization declared such a conflict in Homs, Hama and Idlib, but hostilities have spread enough that the conflict exists throughout the country, ICRC spokesman Sean Maguire said.
"Part of its legal mandate is to determine when international humanitarian law applies," Maguire told CNN. "We make a determination as to whether a conflict exists."
"In theory," he said, the Red Cross announcement could affect prosecutions by the International Criminal Court in the future. If a prosecuting authority is established for Syria, it could point to the announcement that the Geneva Conventions applied and to ways that they were violated. However, for the court to look at the situation in Syria, a referral from the U.N. Security Council would be required, Maguire noted.
At least 97 people were killed Monday, according to the opposition Local Coordination Committees of Syria (LCC). There were 30 deaths in Hama, 21 in Homs, 13 in Aleppo, 11 in Damascus, eight in Daraa, seven in Deir Ezzor, four in the Damascus suburbs and three in Idlib, the LCC said.
Monday's fighting in Damascus follows what opposition activists called a massacre of more than 200 people in the town of Tremseh, near Hama, last week. But a top Syrian official disputed the death toll and the massacre allegation, telling reporters over the weekend that government troops were fighting armed opposition.
U.N. monitors reported Sunday that the attack appeared to target "army defectors and activists," citing accounts by more than two dozen villagers.
The monitors said Syrian forces began shelling the town on Thursday morning. Soldiers entered after the bombardment, conducting house-to-house searches and demanding identification from the men they found. "Numerous" people were then killed after their identification was checked, and some other men were taken from the village, the monitors said.
The monitors found more than 50 homes that had been burned or destroyed, with "pools of blood and brain matter" seen in several homes. The dead included a Free Syrian Army leader who was shot and doctor and his children who died when their home was struck by a mortar shell, the monitors said in a statement issued Sunday. However, the monitors said the number of dead and wounded in Tremseh remained unclear.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Jihad Makdissi told reporters Sunday that opposition fighters had used the village as a base for attacks on government forces. He said only 37 "gunmen" and two civilians were killed in the operation in Tremseh and that no heavy weapons or aircraft were used, according to comments carried by the state-run Syrian Arab News Agency.
'Massacres in Syria send terror message'
Syria's chemical weapons
U.N. sets deadline for Syria
CNN cannot confirm details of reported violence because Syria has restricted access to the country by international journalists.
Amid the ongoing fighting, U.N.-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan headed to Moscow for talks with the Syrian government's leading ally. Annan met Monday with Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and is set to hold talks on Tuesday with President Vladimir Putin, Annan spokesman Ahmed Fawzi told CNN.
No details of the talks were immediately available. But Lavrov complained Monday that Western diplomats are trying to "blackmail" Russia into signing onto a tough new U.N. Security Council resolution targeting Damascus. Britain has proposed new steps to press Syria's government to end the conflict under Chapter 7 of the U.N. Charter, which carries the threat of additional sanctions or even military force.
"Unfortunately, we have seen some elements of blackmail," Lavrov said. He said Moscow has been told that unless it signs onto a Chapter 7 resolution, "They will not agree to extend the U.N. observers' mandate. I consider it a totally counterproductive and a dangerous approach, because it is unacceptable to use the observers as the bargaining chip."
He slammed Western countries that are trying to change Russia's stance.
"The track record of those who try to make us step aside from this position has a lot of deplorable instances of unilateral military actions, and the results are well remembered by everybody," Lavrov said.
Russia and China, which have commercial deals with Syria, have used their veto power to block some of the toughest draft resolutions against the Syrian regime in the Security Council.
During a visit to the Middle East on Monday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the United States is trying to get other countries to lobby Beijing and Moscow to support tougher steps against embattled Syrian President Hafez al-Assad.
"We are trying to intervene in a way that brings about an end to the violence and a transition to a democratic future that doesn't require adding to the violence further militarizing the conflict, perhaps killing more people and pushing them across the borders," Clinton said.
As long as al-Assad has the support of its longtime ally Iran and has Russia "uncertain about whether to side in any more dramatic way that it already has, he feels that he can keep going," Clinton said. "That's the message we want to reverse."
Numerous countries, including the United States, have criticized Russia, saying its actions in the Security Council have helped the Syrian regime continue a brutal crackdown on the opposition.
Meanwhile, many nations have expelled Syrian ambassadors, with Morocco becoming the latest to do so Monday. Syria responded by declaring Morocco's ambassador persona non grata.
Since the crisis began in March 2011, the United Nations estimates more than 10,000 people have been killed in the violence; opposition activists say more than 15,000 have died.
Throughout the conflict, al-Assad's government has consistently blamed violence on "armed terrorist groups," and reported on its security forces "martyred" in attacks.
CNN's Josh Levs, Ivan Watson, Hamdi Alkhshali, Holly Yan, Ben Brumfield, Phil Black and Samya Ayish contributed to this report.
© 2013 Cable News Network. Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Syrian troops move into Dumayna on May 13.
Rebel fighters fire at government forces in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo on Sunday, May 12.
Smoke rises from an explosion in a Syrian village near the Israeli border on Tuesday, May 7.
Multiple explosions hit a Syrian village near the Israeli border on May 6.
A photo released by the Syrian Arab News Agency shows destruction from what is said was bomb attack in the Al-Hama area of Damascus on Sunday, May 5. According to the Syrian government, Israel launched an attack on a research center in the Damascus suburbs early Sunday.
People run for cover after what activists said was shelling by forces loyal to Syria's President Bashar al-Assad in Syria's Raqqa province, on May 3.
People walk past a damaged building and multiple destroyed cars at the site of an explosion in Damascus where at least 13 were killed on April 30.
Cleaning takes place following another explosion in an upscale Damascus neightborhood on Monday, April 29. Syrian Prime Minister Wael al-Halqi survived the bombing targeting his motorcade.
A smoke cloud rises from shelling on the the al-Turkman mountains in Syria's Latakia province on Thursday, April 25.
Searchers use a flashlight as they look for survivors among the rubble created by what activists say was a missile attack from the Syrian regime, in Raqqa province, Syria, on April 25.
A handout photograph from Syria's national news agency SANA shows damage and debris from a mortar attack in the suburb of Jarmana near Damascus, Syria, on Wednesday, April 24. The attack killed seven and wounded more than 25, according to activists and state media. No group claimed responsibility for the mortar fire, which SANA said hit a municipality office and a school building.
A Kurdish fighter from the "Popular Protection Units" (YPG) takes position inside a building in the majority-Kurdish Sheikh Maqsood area of Aleppo, on Apri. 21.
People walk past destroyed houses in the northern Syrian town of Azaz on Sunday, April 21.
Free Syrian Army fighters take positions prior to an offensive against government forces in the Khan al-Assal area, near Aleppo on Saturday, April 20.
Men inspect damage at a house destroyed in an airstrike in Aleppo on April 15.
Syrian and Kurdish rebel fighters walk in the Sheikh Maqsud district of Aleppo on April 14.
A Syrian boy holds an AK-47 assault rifle in the streets of Aleppo on Sunday, April 14.
A female rebel monitors the movement of Syrian government forces in Aleppo's Sheikh Maqsud neighborhood on April 11.
A rebel runs to avoid sniper fire from Syrian government forces in Aleppo on Thursday, April 11.
Syrian rebels observe the movement of Syrian government forces around Al-Kendi hospital in Aleppo on Wednesday, April 10.
Rescue teams and security forces check out the scene of a deadly car bomb explosion in Damascus on April 8.
The fighting has taken a toll on buildings in Aleppo's Saladin district, seen here on April 8.
A Syrian rebel runs for cover in Deir ez-Zor on April 2.
A rebel checks for snipers across the street toward the Citadel in Aleppo, Syria, on Saturday, March 30, in this photo taken by iReporter Lee Harper.
A Free Syrian fighter mourns the death of a friend in Aleppo on March 30, in this photo taken by iReporter Lee Harper.
A Syrian opposition fighter runs for cover from Syrian army snipers in Aleppo on Wednesday, March 27.
A Syrian girl covers her face to protect herself from fumes as a street covered with uncollected garbage is fumigated in Aleppo on Sunday, March 24.
A Syrian man and his family drive past damaged buildings in Maarat al-Numan, on Wednesday, March 20.
Syrians carry the body of a Syrian army soldier during a funeral ceremony in Idlib province on Tuesday, March 19.
Syrian rebels take position in Aleppo, the largest city in the country, on March 11.
Syrian men search for their relatives amongst the bodies of civilians executed and dumped in the Quweiq River on March 11.
A Free Syrian Army fighter looks back as smoke rises during fighting between rebel fighters and forces loyal to Syria's President Bashar al-Assad on the outskirts of Aleppo on Saturday, March 2.
Residents read Shaam News newspapers published by the Free Syrian Army in Aleppo on March 2.
A member of the Free Syrian Army reacts to the death of a comrade who was killed in fighting, at Bustan al Qasr cemetery in Aleppo on Friday, March 1.
A rebel fighter throws a home-made grenade at Syrian government forces in Aleppo on February 16.
A member of the Free Syrian Army stands with his weapon as he looks at a rainbow in Aleppo on February 16.
A Syrian woman looks through a bus window in Aleppo on February 14.
Free Syrian Army fighters walk through a dust-filled stairwell in Damascus on February 7.
A Syrian rebel gestures at comrades from inside a broken armored personnel carrier in Al-Yaqubia on February 6.
A rebel fighter throws a hand grenade inside a Syrian Army base in Damascus on February 3.
People stand in the dust of a building destroyed in an airstrike in Aleppo, Syria on February 3.
Free Syrian Army fighters run as they enter a Syrian Army base during heavy fighting in the Arabeen neighborhood of Damascus on February 3.
An unexploded mortar shell fired by the Syrian Army sits lodged in the ground in Damascus on January 25.
Fighters from Fateh al Sham unit of the Free Syrian Army fire on Syrian Army soldiers at a check point in Damascus on January 20.
A Free Syrian Army fighter walks between buildings damaged during Syrian Air Force strikes in Damascus on January 19.
A Syrian rebel fighter tries to locate a government jet fighter in Aleppo on January 18.
Syrian rebels launch a missile near the Abu Baker brigade in Albab on January 16.
A Syrian boy walks near rubbish next to tents at a refugee camp near the northern city of Azaz on the Syria-Turkey border, on January 8.
Syrians look for survivors amid the rubble of a building targeted by a missile in Aleppo on January 7.
A father reacts after hearing of a shelling by forces loyal to Syria's President Bashar al-Assad in Aleppo on January 3.
A patient smokes a cigarette at Dar Al-Ajaza psychiatric hospital in Aleppo on December 18, 2012. The psychiatric ward, housing around 60 patients, has lacked the means to function properly since fighting broke out there in July.
Syrians mourn a fallen rebel fighter at a rebel base in the al-Fardos area of Aleppo on December 8.
Members of Liwa (Brigade) Salahadin, a Kurdish military unit fighting alongside rebel fighters, monitor the area in the besieged district of Karmel al-Jabl in Aleppo on December 6.
A member of Liwa Salahadin aims at a regime fighter in the besieged district of Karmel al-Jabl in Aleppo on December 6.
Two young boys sit underneath a washline in a refugee camp on the border between Syria and Turkey near Azaz on December 5.
The bodies of three children, who were allegedly killed in a mortar shell attack that landed close to a bakery in Aleppo, on December 2, are laid out for identification by family members at a makeshift hospital at an undisclosed location of the city.
Smoke rises in the Hanano and Bustan al-Basha districts in Aleppo on December 1 as fighting continues through the night.
Damaged houses in Aleppo are seen after an airstrike on November 29.
A Syrian rebel mourns the death of a comrade in Maraat al-Numan on November 20.
Syrians protesters stand on Assad's portrait during an anti-regime demonstration in Aleppo on November 16.
A Syrian rebel takes cover during fighting against Syrian government forces in Aleppo on November 15.
Syrian opposition fighter Bazel Araj, 19, sleeps next to his pistol in Aleppo on November 11.
A rebel fighter fires at a Syrian government position in Aleppo on November 6.
A Syrian rebel leaps over debris left in the street while running across a "sniper alley" near the Salahudeen district in Aleppo on November 4.
Rebels hold their position in the midst of a battle on November 3 in Aleppo.
A man cries while being treated in a local hospital in a rebel-controlled area of Aleppo on October 31.
A man is treated for wounds after a government jet attacked the Karm al-Aser neighborhood in eastern Aleppo on October 31.
A Syrian rebel interrogates a handcuffed and blindfolded man suspected of being a pro-regime militiaman in Aleppo on October 26.
Smoke rises from a fuel station following a mortar attack as Syrian women walk on a rainy day in the Arqub neighborhood of Aleppo on October 25.
A Syrian rebel fires at an army position in the Karm al-Jabal district of Aleppo on October 22.
A wounded Syrian boy sits on the back of a truck carrying victims and wounded people to a hospital following an attack by regime forces in Aleppo on October 21.
A man lies on the ground after being shot by a sniper for a second time as he waits to be rescued by members of the Al-Baraa Bin Malek Battalion, part of the Free Syria Army's Al-Fatah brigade, in Aleppo on October 20.
Syrian army soldiers run for cover during clashes with rebel fighters at Karam al-Jabal neighborhood of Aleppo on October 20.
Smoke rises after a Syrian Air Force fighter jet fired missiles at the suburbs of the northern province of Idlib on October 16.
A Syrian opposition fighter stands near a post in Aleppo on October 11.
A Syrian man mourns the death of his father, who was killed during a government attack in Aleppo on October 10.
A rebel fighter is carried by his friends and laid on a gurney to be treated for gunshot wounds sustained during heavy battles with government forces in Aleppo on October 1.
Syrian rebels help a wounded comrade to an Aleppo hospital after he was injured in a Syrian army strike on September 18.
Free Syria Army fighters are reflected in a mirror they use to see a Syrian Army post only 50 meters away in Aleppo on September 16.
A Syrian man carrying grocery bags tries to dodge sniper fire as he runs through an alley near a checkpoint manned by the Free Syria Army in Aleppo on September 14.
A woman walks past a destroyed building in Aleppo on September 13.
Free Syrian Army fighters battle during street fighting against Syrian army soldiers in Aleppo on September 8.
A Syrian man wounded by shelling sits on a chair outside a closed shop in Aleppo on September 4.
A woman sits in her wheelchair next to her house, damaged by a Syrian air raid, near Homs on August 26.
Members of the Free Syrian Army clash with Syrian army soliders in Aleppo's Saif al-Dawla district on August 22.
A man mourns in front of a field hospital on August 21 in Aleppo.
Wounded civilians wait in a field hospital after an air strike on August 21 in Aleppo.
People pray during the funeral of a Free Syrian Army fighter, Amar Ali Amero, on August 21.
A man cries near the graves of his two children killed during a recent Syrian airstrike in Azaz on August 20.
A Syrian woman holds her dead baby as she screams upon seeing her husband's body being covered following an airstrike by regime forces on the town of Azaz on August 15.
A Syrian rebel runs in a street of Selehattin during an attack on the municipal building on July 23.
Syrian rebels hunt for snipers after attacking the municipality building in the city center of Selehattin on July 23.
Members of the Free Syrian Army's Mugaweer (commandos) Brigade pay their respects in a cemetery on May 12 in Qusayr.
Syrian rebels take position near Qusayr on May 10.
A Free Syrian Army member takes cover in underground caves in Sarmin on April 9.
Rebels prepare to engage government tanks that advanced into Saraquib on April 9.
Men say prayers during a ceremony in Binnish on April 9.
A young boy plays with a toy gun in Binnish on April 9.
A Free Syrian Army rebel mounts his horse in the Al-Shatouria village near the Turkish border in northwestern Syria on March 16, a year after the uprising began.
Syrian refugees walk across a field before crossing into Turkey on March 14.
A rebel takes position in Al-Qsair on January 27.
A protester in Homs throws a tear gas bomb back towards security forces, on December 27, 2011.
A man stands under a giant Syrian flag outside the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus on December 24, 2011.
A member of the Free Syrian Army looks out over a valley in the village of Ain al-Baida on December 15, 2011.
Members of the Free Syrian Army stand in an valley near the village of Ain al-Baida, close to the Turkish border, on December 15, 2011.
Displaced Syrian refugees walk through an orchard adjacent to Syria's northern border with Turkey on June 14, 2011, near Khirbet al-Jouz.
A Syrian man holds up a portrait of President Bashar al-Assad during a rally to show support for the president in Damascus on April 30, 2011.
Syrians rally to show their support for President Bashar al-Assad in Damascus on April 30, 2011.
A screen grab from YouTube shows thick smoke rising above as Syrian anti-government protesters demonstrate in Moaret Al-Noman on April 29, 2011.
A screen grab from YouTube shows Syrian anti-government protesters run for cover from tear gas fired by security forces in Damascus on April 29, 2011, during the "Day of Rage" demonstrations called by activists to put pressure on al-Assad.
Syrians wave their national flag and hold portraits of al-Assad during a rally to show their support for their leader in Damascus on March 29, 2011.
A woman sits by the hospital bed of a man allegedly injured when an armed group seized rooftops in Latakia on March 27, 2011, and opened fire at passers-by, citizens and security forces personnel according to official sources.
Syrian protesters chant slogans in support of al-Assad during a rally in Damascus on March 25, 2011.
|