Plumes of smoke were visible across the Syrian capital as fierce clashes raged for a second day within four miles of both Mr Assad's official residence and the buildings housing his pliant parliament.
With opposition forces claiming to have embarked on a new strategy "to bring the fighting into the centre of the capital", the Syrian conflict – described for the first time as a "civil war" by the Red Cross on Sunday – entered a dangerous new phase.
But even this most dramatic of escalations failed to break the deadlock in the United Nations Security Council.
Russia declared it would not succumb to Western "blackmail" by supporting a British proposal to try to end the crisis by threatening Mr Assad with sanctions. Kofi Annan, the international envoy to Syria, flew to Moscow in a desperate effort to end an impasse that now threatens the future of the 300-strong observer mission, whose mandate expires on Friday.
As the international acrimony ground on, the man Moscow has propped up for the past 16 months of turmoil struggled to confront one of the biggest challenges ever posed to his 12-year presidential career.
The Telegraph
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