Damascus suburb under fire - FT.com Syrian security forces renewed their attack on a Damascus suburb on Wednesday, with local residents and activists saying the area was under fire from mortars and machine guns. Regime forces have been attacking the district of Douma, on the north-east fringe of the capital, since shortly after the departure of UN monitors who visited the area on Monday. Douma resident Mohammed Saeed told the Associated Press that the suburb had been without electricity for a day, and that civilians were seeking cover on lower floors of apartment buildings. The Local Co-ordination Committees, an activists" network, also confirmed Douma was still under attack on Wednesday. After UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan described the prospects for the ceasefire as "bleak" on Tuesday, US secretary of state Hillary Clinton expressed doubt that the Syrian regime intends to honour the truce. "Even as we work to help deploy the monitors, we are preparing additional steps in case the violence continues or the monitors are prevented from doing their work," she said in remarks made at the US State Department, without specifying what those additional steps may be. The internationally-brokered truce in Syria was dealt another blow on Tuesday as security forces came under attack in Damascus and Douma residents said the army fired on them after UN peace monitors left. People in Douma said regime forces unleashed an offensive using tanks and snipers, in the latest bombardment of an opposition area after a visit from the expanding but still tiny UN team. The alleged attack - together with as many as three separate assaults on security force targets - underscores the huge scale of the peacekeeping task facing the unarmed UN mission even if it reaches its full strength of several hundred personnel. "Shells are storming the city," said a Douma man who identified himself as Ammar via Skype, where what sounded like loud explosions could be heard in the background. Snipers are targeting the people in the streets. Electricity went off hours ago. The reports of an attack on Douma came a day after more than 30 people were reported by activists to have been killed in the central city of Hama after a visit by UN monitors. On Tuesday, Mr Annan told the UN Security Council that, if confirmed, the Hama attack was "reprehensible and unacceptable."