Syria kills dozens in bombardment of border town Rankous, a mountain town of 25,000 people, 19 miles north of Damascus, has been under tank bombardment since Wednesday, when it was besieged by several thousand troops led by the elite Fourth Division, under the command of President Bashar al-Assad's brother Maher, they said. Meanwhile government forces killed at least five civilians on Sunday in an attack to take back large suburbs of the capital Damascus that had fallen under rebel control, activists said. Around 2,000 soldiers in buses and armoured personnel carriers, along with at least 50 tanks and armoured vehicles moved at dawn into the eastern Ghouta area on the edge of Damascus to reinforce troops surrounding the suburbs of Saqba, Hammouriya and Kfar Batnba. The attacks came as Russia provided strong backing for the Syrian regime with an attack on the Arab league for withdrawing its monitoring mission from the strice-torn country. "We would like to know why they are treating such a useful instrument in this way," Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on a visit to Brunei. I would support an increased number of observers. We are surprised that after a decision was taken on prolonging the observers' mission for another month, some countries, particularly Persian Gulf countries, recalled their observers from the mission. The Arab League suspended its observer mission on Saturday as the bloodshed in a crackdown on anti-regime protests spiked and the death toll in four days topped 210. Lavrov said that he did not back those Western countries that said the mission was pointless and that it was impossible to hold dialogue with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime. I think these are very irresponsible statements