The United States has said it killed more than 100 fighters loyal to the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad as it repelled an assault on a US-controlled base in eastern Syria, the most serious clash between the alliance led by Washington and government forces in the country.

News of the battle emerged amid another bloody day in Syria that signalled the complete unraveling of a shaky nationwide ceasefire. Syrian government forces shelled and bombed the region of eastern Ghouta, near the capital, Damascus, on the third day of a relentless campaign that has killed 21 people so far on Thursday alone.

“There is a new massacre in eastern Ghouta and new violations against humanity,” said Raed Srewel, a journalist based in the town of Douma. “The planes are always in the skies of Ghouta, the markets and homes are being bombed, there are martyrs and wounded, and God is our only solace.”

“There is no safe place in Ghouta,” he added. “You can describe it with this saying we have: in addition to death, the graves are too small.”



The escalating violence came days after a failed peace conference in Sochi sponsored by Russia, the main backer of the Assad regime. After the conference, the Syrian regime and its allies stepped up a campaign of violence in Ghouta and Idlib, two of the last major strongholds of the opposition.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A Syrian man searches for survivors in a building in Douma destroyed by regime airstrikes. Photograph: Hamza Al-Ajweh/AFP/Getty Images

The fighting in Idlib has displaced at least 300,000 civilians towards the north of the province and the Turkish border, as people fled a regime advance and bombardment there.

Syrian government forces also clashed with US forces in the eastern province of Deir ez-Zor, the first time such a large-scale confrontation occurred on Syrian land.

An official with the US-led coalition against Islamic State told Reuters it had repelled a coordinated assault by pro-regime militias on a base in the region, a battle that Syrian state media appeared to confirm with a news bulletin which accused the coalition of killing dozens of militiamen.

The official said no US troops were killed or wounded in the attack, which was carried out by some 500 fighters, but one Syrian fighter allied with the coalition was wounded. More than a hundred pro-regime fighters were killed.

The battle underscored the competing global and regional powers fighting in Syria and the myriad conflicts they are prosecuting on Syrian territory nearly seven years into the civil war.