A Syrian military helicopter has caught fire and crashed after it was apparently hit during fighting between government forces and opposition fighters in the capital Damascus, an activist group has said.

Activists said the opposition Free Syria Army claimed that it had shot down the helicopter. Syria's state-run media on Monday confirmed there had been a crash in Damascus, but it gave no further details.

Several videos posted on YouTube showed the helicopter flying above buildings while flames gradually engulf it as it abruptly turns, nose dives and spins towards the ground before disappearing from view.

State media said the helicopter crashed in al-Qaboun district, which is close to the western Damascus neighbourhood of Jobar.
Al Jazeera's Rula Amin, reporting from Beirut in neighbouring Lebanon, said it was still unclear whether the aircraft was shot down or if it had merely crashed.

The shooting down of the helicopter came as activists reported intense new fighting in the suburbs around Damascus, including a possible new massacre of more than 300 people in the Daraya district.

Air attacks

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which initially reported the crash, said there was fighting between regime troops backed by helicopter gunships and opposition fighters in Jobar on Monday.

With its forces stretched thin by fighting on multiple fronts, President Bashar al-Assad's regime has been increasingly using helicopters and warplanes against the opposition fighters.

The army has for more than a month been fighting major battles against opposition forces in Damascus and its suburbs while engaged in what appears to be a stalemate in the fight against opposition forces for control of northern Aleppo, the nation's largest city and commercial capital.

The opposition forces are not known to have any answer to the regime's air power except anti-aircraft guns that they mostly use as an anti-personnel weapon.

Last month, opposition fighters said they had shot down a Russian-made MiG fighter, but the government blamed the crash on a technical malfunction.

The Syrian conflict began 17 months ago with peaceful protests demanding that Assad step down, but it has since morphed into a civil war. Rights activists say at least 20,000 people have so far been killed.

Turkish border

Several thousand refugees have been halted on the Syrian side of the border with Turkey due to more stringent security checks in Turkey.

The tighter checks come amid Turkish fears that Kurdish rebels fighting for self-rule in southeast Turkey may be coming in through Syria.

On Monday, a government official said Turkey was providing emergency aid to the refugees while they waited to be processed.
Turkey hosts more than 80,000 Syrian refugees and has called on the United Nations to set up camps inside Syria.

In Daraya, the Observatory said 320 bodies had been found and collected after what opposition said was a brutal onslaught of shelling, summary executions and house-to-house raids by government troops.

The group said another 14 bodies had been found on Sunday, and that it had so far identified 220 of the dead.

The Local Coordination Committees, a network of activists on the ground, described the killings as a "massacre" by Assad's forces.

Activists have in the past used the word "massacre" to describe mass killings by regime troops.

The Observatory said at least 149 people were killed across the strife-torn country on Sunday.

Regime forces shelled Basra al-Sham in the province of Daraa, cradle of the 17-month uprising, killing at least 17 civilians on Sunday, it said.

PHOTO CAPTION

A government tank comes under fire in Douma.

Al-Jazeera