Armour-backed Syrian troops enter Damascus district

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AMMAN, July 16 (Reuters) - Syrian troops backed by armoured vehicles entered the district of Midan in central Damascus on Monday to drive out rebels who have secured a foothold at a striking distance from major state installations, neighbourhood activists said.

In the biggest armoured deployment in Damascus in the 17-month-old uprising against President Bashar al-Assad, infantry fighting vehicles deployed along main thoroughfares of Midan, a Sunni Muslim neighbourhood, as the insurgents withdrew to alleyways and sporadic fighting was reported, they said.

"The rebels are trying to hold the army off in al-Zahra al-Jadeeda (neighbourhood). There is fighting there and the sound of bombardment and rocket-propelled grenades is echoing from there," Radeef, an opposition activist, said by phone from Midan. "Armoured vehicles are now deployed in the rest of Midan and army snipers have taken positions on rooftops."

Another activist said residents of the large neighbourhood were staying indoors and the only movement seen was that of the army and its armour and rebels in the alleyways of the old district, which has been rebuilt since it was shelled during a rebellion against French occupation in the 1920s.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and other opposition sources said residents of Nahr Aisheh, a poor Sunni neighbourhood south of Midan, had blocked the main Damascus-Amman highway with rocks and burning tyres to try and relieve pressure on Midan.

Syria's conflict has become increasingly sectarian in nature, with the rebels mainly from the Sunni majority pitted against government forces led by members of Assad's minority Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam. (Reporting by Khaled Yacoub Oweis, Amman newsroom; Editing by Mark Heinrich)