No-one here cares about Assad's speech. They care about food Fighting raged across Syria yesterday with clashes reported just a few miles from where president Bashar al-Assad unveiled a "peace plan" this weekend that Syrians on both sides said would do nothing to end a 21-month-old uprising. Hours after Mr Assad addressed cheering loyalists at the Damascus Opera House on Sunday in his first public speech in months, fighting erupted near the road to the city's international airport, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. The opposition-linked group said artillery hit the district of Aqraba, three miles from the Opera House. Fighting continued through the night and into yesterday around the capital, as well as in the northern provinces of Idlib and Aleppo, it said. In central Syria, the towns of Taybet Imam and Halfaya were bombarded with aerial strikes and artillery, said Abu Faisal, an activist in Taybet Imam. Every four to five minutes, we hear the burst from a rocket. We cannot get any wounded out because we are essentially under siege," he said, adding that many civilians had fled. Damascus residents said Mr Assad's speech, which offered no concessions to his foes, was met with celebratory gunfire in pro-Assad neighbourhoods. But even loyalists were not entirely impressed with the speech. "It sounded more like gloating than making promises," said one resident of southern Damascus. I agree with the ideas, but words are really just words until he takes some action. But even so, everything he suggests now, it is too late, the rebels aren't going to stop. In the once-affluent district of Mezzeh, scene of several bomb attacks, a critic of Mr Assad said people had more pressing concerns: "Here, no-one cares about this speech. They care about food and electricity. France, the United States, Britain and Turkey all said Mr Assad's speech, his first to an audience since June last year, showed he had lost touch with reality after unrest that the United Nations reported recently has killed 60,000 people. Turkish prime minister Tayyip Erdogan yesterday accused Mr Assad of "directing state terrorism." The plan described by Mr Assad as a peace initiative proposed a ceasefire only after rebels halt their operations, and summoned Syrians to mobilise for a war to defend the state against "a puppet made by the West." The UN said its secretary-general, Ban Ki-moon, was disappointed that Mr Assad rejected the idea of a transitional government to pave the way to new elections - a central plank of a peace plan promoted by international envoy Lakhdar Brahimi. Syria's prime minister, Wael al-Halki, called yesterday for a special cabinet meeting to implement Mr Assad's programme "to solve the crisis in Syria," the state news agency SANA said. George Sabra, vice-president of the opposition National Coalition, said: "We should see it[Mr Assad's proposal] rather as a declaration that he will continue his war against the Syrian people." And French foreign ministry spokesman Philippe Lalliot said: "Bashar al-Assad's speech is further evidence of just how far he has cut himself off from reality in order to justify his repression of the Syrian people." Mr Assad's ally, Iran, defended the speech as offering a "comprehensive political process." "This plan rejects violence and terrorism and any foreign interference," Iranian foreign minister Ali Akbar Salehi said. After six months of advances, rebels now control wide areas of northern and eastern Syria, most of its border crossings with Turkey and a crescent of Damascus suburbs. But Mr Assad's government, with helicopters and jets on hand, is still firmly entrenched in the capital and controls most of the densely populated south-west, the Mediterranean coast, the main north-south highway and military bases countrywide.