Heavy Fighting Rocks Damascus Neighborhood BEIRUT, Lebanon - Heavy fighting erupted early Monday between armed defectors and the Syrian Army in a wealthy and well-protected area of Damascus, according to anti-government activists and residents who described the clashes as the most intense in such a strategic area of the capital since the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad began a year ago. At least 18 members of the security forces were killed in the battle, according to the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. There was no immediate confirmation from the government, but residents and activists said it was unusual to see such heavy clashes in a well-defended area so close to key security installations and the residences of powerful figures. "It's the first time something happened so close and so loud," said a businesswoman, reached by telephone, who lives a short drive from the center of the fighting and who declined to give her name. We stayed awake and couldn't sleep till around 5 a.m.. The fighting started around 2 or 3 a.m. with several explosions, activists and residents said, followed by automatic-weapons fire and helicopters circling with searchlights, in a wealthy area of the city's Mezzeh district that is home to business people, United Nations offices and diplomatic residences. Smoke was seen rising near an upscale supermarket and the high-rise Tala Tower, decorated with a seven-story portrait of a smiling President Assad. "We had a terrible night," said another resident in her mid-thirties who was reached by telephone. She said she was too afraid to send her daughter to school on Monday. Mezzeh is a sprawling area on the western edge of Damascus, one of the first city panoramas that greets visitors arriving on the Damascus-Beirut highway named for Hafez al-Assad, the president's father who ruled for 30 years. The West Villas section of Mezzeh, where the nighttime fighting took place, is a neighborhood of standalone houses across the highway from a military airport. It is home to wealthy Syrians of a mix of ethnic backgrounds and political persuasions, many of whom live cosmopolitan lives and have a foothold abroad in the form of business or dual citizenship. To its north is Mezzeh 86, a less wealthy area home to many Alawites, members of the security forces, and, some residents say, the shabiha, a term for pro-government gangs that have been unleashed against the government's opponents. Activists with the Local Coordinating Committees, a coalition of Syria-based groups, reported that large numbers of security vehicles and shabiha were deployed there by midday on Monday. In recent months, a protest on one of the main streets of Mezzeh near the Iranian embassy drew fire from some residents of the area, activists said. But not everyone there is a government supporter. The businesswoman reached by telephone said residents were hotly debating the cause of the clashes, including in a flurry of Facebook postings featuring video of dark streets whose images rocked each time an explosion was heard. She mocked the people who offered a pro-government explanation. "Nobody knows what exactly was going on," she said. Some say a very important person wanted to defect, but the funniest and most ridiculous version I heard was that a little girl got kidnapped, and the security came to rescue her. "It made me laugh so hard, " she added. The clashes shocked residents accustomed to being far from the violence. One woman said her 60-year-old mother, living in the neighborhood alone, was terrified. She didn't know who to call or what to do. It's not easy when you're old and on your own. Reporting was contributed by Hala Droubi in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, and Hwaida Saad in Beirut.