President Bashar Assad said Sunday that Syria's three-year conflict was at a "turning point" due to his forces' military gains against rebels, state media said.
Assad's comments came as fighting between regime forces and rebels raged in half a dozen provinces throughout the country, with Saturday's nationwide death toll standing at 275 people, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
On Sunday, opposition activists said at least 20 people were killed when warplanes attacked the Damascus suburb of Douma. A day earlier, rebels and the government blamed each other for an alleged poison gas attack on the village of Kafr Zeita in the province of Hama that they said wounded scores of people.
Other airstrikes targeted Mliha, also in eastern Ghouta, while clashes on the town's edges pitted rebels and their Nusra Front allies against the army and its Lebanese ally Hezbollah, the Observatory said.
The attack hit Beirut Street, located near the army command headquarters, and killed two people, the Observatory said.
In Aleppo, fighting raged around the Air Force intelligence headquarters, which rebels have been trying to seize from regime hands, the Observatory said.
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