Regime’s airstrikes, barrel bombs pound Eastern Ghouta

HAMMURIYEH, 12 Mar 2018 [Fik/News Sources]: New airstrikes and barrel bombs pounded Syria’s Eastern Ghouta on Sunday as regime forces pressed a three-week advance that splintered the opposition enclave and trapped dozens under collapsed buildings.
Defying global calls for a cease-fire, Syria’s regime has pursued a ferocious Russian-backed air campaign and ground offensive to capture the region, the last rebel bastion on the capital’s doorstep.
In three weeks of fighting, it has overrun more than half the area and split the remainder into three pockets, isolating the urban hub of Douma from the rest of the enclave.
On Sunday, regime troops battered the edges of each pocket with air raids, barrel bombs, and rockets, said the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
After fighting all morning, they captured the town of Medeira, which lies at the heart of the three zones, Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman said.
State news agency SANA had reported troops were focusing on the town in order to cut the opposition’s access routes in Ghouta.
Bombing runs across several towns in Ghouta killed a dozen civilians on Sunday, bringing the total toll from the offensive to at least 1,111 civilians, the Observatory said.
They include dozens of decomposing bodies still trapped under pulverized residential blocks in the towns of Hammuriyeh, Saqba, and Misraba.