UN chief leads world outcry over Syria 'massacre' 
 
 DAMASCUS — UN chief Ban Ki-moon demanded an independent inquiry Monday into the killings of hundreds of civilians in the Syrian town of Daraya as world outrage mounted over the "massacre" by pro-government forces. 
 
 Rebels from the Free Syrian Army claimed to have downed a military helicopter as they battled the army in a new front in east Damascus where a human rights watchdog reported at least 35 people killed, among them children. 
 
 France said it was working with allies on possibility of setting up buffer zones to protect civilians inside Syria amid growing concern about the plight of fleeing civilians camped out on the country's borders. 
 
 The UN chief was "shocked" by the reports of hundreds of bodies found in Daraya, a satellite town southwest of Damascus that was subjected to a five-day assault by pro-government forces last week, his spokesman Martin Nesirky said. 
 
 "The secretary general is certainly shocked by those reports and he strongly condemns this appalling and brutal crime," Nesirky told reporters. 
 
 "Where hundreds of civilians have been killed in Daraya, this needs to be investigated immediately in an independent and impartial fashion," the spokesman added. 
 
 The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that 334 bodies had now been found in Daraya after what activists described as brutal five-day onslaught of shelling, summary executions and house-to-house raids by pro-government forces. 
 
 The Sunni Muslim town of some 200,000 people is seen as a stronghold of opposition to the minority Alawite-led regime of President Bashar al-Assad. 
 
 Grisly videos issued by opposition activists showed dozens of charred and bloodied bodies lined up in broad daylight in a graveyard in Daraya, and others lying wall-to-wall in rooms in a mosque. 
 
 State media said the operation had "purified terrorist remnants" in Daraya, while pro-government television Al-Dunia said "terrorists" had carried out the killings. 
 
 -- 'Atrocity on a new scale' -- 
 
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 The White House said the reports of the Daraya massacre were the latest evidence of Assad's "wanton disregard for human life." 
 
 Britain said it would be "an atrocity on a new scale" and the European Union said it was "totally unacceptable." 
 
 In a new front in east Damascus, rebels from the Free Syrian Army claimed to have downed a military helicopter in the Qaboon district, where activists reported shelling, heavy fire by combat helicopters and fierce clashes between troops and rebels. 
 
 State television said the aircraft crashed near a mosque. 
 
 The FSA had previously said it shot down a Syrian warplane two weeks ago in the eastern province of Deir Ezzor and captured its pilot, but the claims cannot be independently confirmed. 
 
 Heavy shelling and fierce fighting also engulfed the Jubar district of east Damascus as well as several towns outside the capital, the Observatory said. 
 
 The Britain-based watchdog said that nationwide a total of 148 people were killed in violence on Monday. 
 
 Human rights groups have accused the regime of committing many atrocities during the 17-month conflict and a UN panel said earlier this month it was guilty of crimes against humanity. It also accused the rebels of war crimes. 
 
 Activists say around 25,000 people have been killed since the uprising against Assad's rule broke out in March last year, while the United Nations says at least 200,000 people have fled to neighbouring countries and another 2.5 million are in need inside Syria. 
 
 Underscoring the growing humanitarian crisis, Turkey, which is struggling to cope with an influx of 80,000 refugees, said another 9,000 were now massed at the border awaiting for more camps to open. 
 
 Turkey has called for establishment of protected buffer zones inside Syria to receive people displaced by the conflict and prevent them flooding over the border and French President Francois Hollande said Monday that discussions were under way with allies on the possibility. 
 
 "We are working ... (on) the initiative of buffer zones proposed by Turkey," Hollande said, adding: "We are doing so in coordination with our closest partners." 
 
 Hollande urged the Syrian opposition to form a "provisional, inclusive and representative" government, adding: "France will recognise the provisional government of the new Syria as soon as it is formed." 
 
 But Washington cautioned against moving ahead too rapidly with a provisional government, saying more work needed to be done to ensure that it was broad-based and representative. 
 
 State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said that the United States was calling on the opposition "to coordinate more closely" with Syrians both inside and outside the country. 
 
 "We would want to ensure that that was based on a solid democratic plan and that it reflected a broad cross-section of those in Syria and reflected the values of inclusion, the values of human rights and protections for all groups," she said. 
 
 Some analysts have voiced concern that the opposition is dominated by Sunni hardliners who could seek revenge against Assad's minority Alawite community, threatening prolonged sectarian bloodshed. 
 
 Copyright © 2012 AFP. All rights reserved. More » ||||| A Syrian warplane has destroyed a petrol station near Damascus, killing and wounding dozens of people and igniting a huge fire in what could be one of the bloodiest attacks in weeks during the 22-month civil war. 
 
 Activists on Wednesday said a single Russian-built MiG fighter fired a missile that hit the station, setting off an inferno in the eastern suburb of Mleiha. Black smoke was seen billowing from the site. 
 
 An amateur video posted online showed charred bodies and gruesome carnage at the scene. 
 
 Mohammed Saeed, an activist who visited the area, said the missile struck as drivers waited in line with their cars at the station. 
 
 Syria has been facing a fuel crisis, and people often wait for hours to get petrol. 
 
 “Many of the people who were there were killed,'' Saeed said via Skype. "Body parts could be seen on the ground". 
 
 He said the missile fired by the plane caused a crater a metre deep. 
 
 An amateur video showed several vehicles on fire and a cloud of smoke rising into the air. 
 
 It was unclear why the Syrian military targeted the petrol station. There have been clashes and shelling in nearby areas in the past days. 
 
 Saeed said there were two other air raids in the nearby suburbs of Maadamiyeh and Deir al-Asafir. 
 
 "Since yesterday the raids have been very intense,'' he said. 
 
 Airbase attacked 
 
 Meanwhile, in the country's northwest, fierce fighting has resumed between President Bashar al-Assad's forces and opposition fighters after rebels attacked regime troops stationed around an airbase in Idlib province, a human rights watchdog says. 
 
 Wednesday’s clashes between rebel fighters and Assad's forces at the Afis military airport near the main Aleppo-Damascus highway killed four armed men and an unknown number of soldiers, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. 
 
 The UK-based monitoring group said Syrian rebels fired machine guns and mortars at helicopters grounded at the base. 
 
 The rebel assault came after authorities announced the temporary closure of the international airport in Aleppo province on Tuesday, after days of attacks there by the rebels who hold large swathes of territory in northern Syria. 
 
 A local resident told the AFP news agency that the army was carrying out air raids around the Taftanaz base in an attempt to repel the multi-pronged attack. 
 
 Fighting also broke out around the crucial Wadi Deif base, one of the last regime bastions in the northwest, the Britain-based observatory said, in a fresh bid to wrest control of the strategic post. 
 
 Rebels captured the nearby town of Maaret al-Numan, located on the important Damascus-Aleppo highway, in October. 
 
 
 
 Air raid 
 
 Regime warplanes also bombed the town of Moadamiyet al-Sham, southwest of the capital, killing at least 12 members of the same family, most of them children, the watchdog said. 
 
 Warplanes also attacked the towns of Shebaa to the southeast and Deir Assafir south of Damascus, where 11 children were killed in November when cluster bombs were dropped on a playground, according to Human Rights Watch. 
 
 The deadly strikes came as forces loyal to Assad battled rebels with artillery fire in Harasta and Douma, rebel strongholds to the northeast of the capital, and in Daraya to the southwest. 
 
 Army reinforcements have been massing for weeks in Daraya in a bid to drive rebel Free Syrian Army fighters from the town, the site of the bloodiest massacre of the conflict in which hundreds died in August. 
 
 Northeast of Damascus, the army shelled Qaboon district, the observatory said, while in the south, residents of a Palestinian refugee camp that faced deadly air raids in December, fled once again amid mortar attacks. 
 
 The UN on Wednesday said more than 60,000 people have been killed in Syria since the uprising against Assad's regime erupted in March 2011.
– A government helicopter crashed today in Damascus, with rebel groups claiming they shot it down. "It was in revenge for the Daraya massacre," a spokesman for the Free Syrian Army told AFP. A video posted online shows the burning helicopter falling to the ground, reports the AP. Syria's official news agency verified the crash, but did not provide details or confirm it was destroyed at the rebels' hands. Meanwhile, the toll from the Daraya massacre continues to rise, and has hit 334 by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights' count. The Los Angeles Times reports that video footage shows victims placed in a mass grave. "We are finding bodies everywhere," says one activist. "The smell of death is everywhere." August has seen 4,000 people killed, according to the Observatory.