114 Dead across Syria as Assad Issues Law Creating Terror Court

Fighting raged in Syria's second city Aleppo on Thursday afternoon, a watchdog said, as President Bashar Assad issued a law establishing a court for terrorism-linked cases.

A security source told Agence France Presse troops were preparing to launch an all-out offensive on rebel-held districts of Aleppo.

Intermittent clashes were reported in the Damascus district of al-Hajar al-Aswad, with the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights watchdog saying at least seven people were killed there on Thursday.

Regime forces pounded the southern Salaheddin and eastern Jazamati districts of Aleppo, the country's commercial hub, the Observatory said.

Across Syria, at least 114 people were killed on Thursday, including 61 civilians, 32 regime troops and 21 rebels, according to the group.

Regime forces shelled the village of Yalda, just south of the capital Damascus, killing 16 civilians, among them five children and four women, the Observatory said.

"The villagers are terrified," the Syrian Revolution General Commission said in a statement, adding that "there are difficulties helping the wounded. Some houses collapsed with people still inside them."

The violence came as rebels and troops prepared for a major battle in Aleppo.

"The special forces were deployed on Wednesday and Thursday on the edges of the city, and more troops have arrived to take part in a generalized counter-offensive on Friday or Saturday," a security source said.

Rebels also said a regime assault appeared imminent.

"We expect a major offensive at any time, specifically on areas across the southern belt, from east to west," Colonel Abdel Jabbar al-Okaidi, a spokesman for the rebel Free Syrian Army in Aleppo, told AFP via Skype.

Syrian newspaper Al-Watan, which is close to the regime, led Thursday with the headline "Aleppo, the mother of all battles."

For five hours on Wednesday night, without let-up, government forces bombarded the southwestern quarter of Salaheddin, which is almost entirely under rebel control, an AFP correspondent witnessed.

The rebels admitted to the correspondent that they are no march for the military and many share the certainty they will die in the expected assault.

In the meantime they prepared to confront the troops, filling sandbags to erect barricades and moving a bus into position to block a street. Some also belt out slogans to give themselves courage.

In southern Damascus, street battles were also fought on Thursday morning in the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp, the Observatory said.

"There are clashes on Street 30 in the Yarmouk camp between Syrian regime forces and fighters from rebel units. Explosions can be heard," it said.

A resident of the camp reached by phone confirmed the fighting.

"It started at 7:00 am. The night was quiet. They are using RPGs and heavy machineguns," he told AFP.

Elsewhere in the city, an activist in the southern neighborhood of Tadamun, who gave his name as Abu Qais al-Shami, said several districts in the southern part of the city were under assault on Thursday by regime forces.

"Last night was quiet but people woke up to the sound of explosions and shelling from seven o'clock in the morning," he told AFP.

A Damascus resident reached by phone told AFP heavy clashes took place in the southern al-Hajar al-Aswad district, where the regime used helicopter gunships.

Regime forces also tried to storm the rebel-held central town of Talbisseh, in the province of Homs, the Observatory said. Four rebels were killed in fighting there.

Meanwhile, state-run news agency SANA said Assad on Thursday issued law number 22 establishing a court to look into terrorism-linked issues with its headquarters in Damascus.

The court has jurisdiction over civilian and military personnel, said SANA.