BEIRUT Fighting raged across Syria on Monday with clashes reported just a few miles from where President Bashar al-Assad had unveiled a "peace plan" that Syrians on both sides said would do nothing to end the country's 21-month-old uprising. 
 
 Hours after 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, 3 miles from the Opera House. Fighting continued all night and into Monday 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 speaking over the internet from 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 by the shelling," he said, adding that many civilians had fled. Taybet Imam sits on an entrance to Syria's main north-south highway, close to the central city of Hama. 
 
 The government restricts access by international media and the accounts could not be verified. 
 
 Damascus residents said Assad's speech, which offered no concessions to his foes, was met with celebratory gunfire in pro-Assad neighborhoods. 
 
 But even there, some saw no sign peace was closer: a loyalist resident of southern Damascus reached by internet said the speech was eloquent but empty. 
 
 "It sounded more like gloating than making promises," said the woman, who gave only her first name, Aliaa. "I agree with the ideas but words are really just words until he takes some action. He needs to do something. But even so, everything he suggests now, it is too late, the rebels aren't going to stop." 
 
 "NO ONE CARES" 
 
 In the once-affluent district of Mezzeh, scene of several bomb attacks, an Assad critic said people had more pressing concerns than a TV speech. "Here, no one cares about this speech. They care about food and electricity." 
 
 Another said few people had watched the speech and that Assad's crackdown would not stop: "Military operations will continue in full swing, and he is staying." 
 
 France, the United States, Britain and Turkey all said 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 says has killed 60,000 people. 
 
 U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland had harsh words for Assad when she was asked whether the United States regarded him as a rational actor and whether he was "evil." 
 
 "I don't think anybody who is guilty of the kinds of crimes against your own people that he's guilty of could be considered rational," Nuland told reporters in Washington. "I personally consider what he's done evil." 
 
 Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan accused Assad on Monday of "directing state terrorism". 
 
 "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," French Foreign Ministry spokesman Philippe Lalliot said. 
 
 The plan described by the Syrian leader as a new peace initiative proposed an army ceasefire only after rebels halt their operations and summoned Syrians to mobilize for a war to defend the state against "a puppet made by the West". 
 
 The United Nations said Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was disappointed that Assad's speech 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. 
 
 "NATIONAL PROGRAMME" 
 
 Syria's Prime Minister Wael al-Halki called on Monday for a special cabinet meeting to implement the "national program announced by President Bashar al-Assad yesterday to solve the crisis in Syria", the state news agency SANA said. 
 
 George Sabra, vice president of the opposition National Coalition, said the putative peace plan "did not even deserve to be called an initiative". 
 
 "We should see it rather as a declaration that he will continue his war against the Syrian people," he told Reuters. 
 
 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. 
 
 There was no immediate response from Moscow, which has acted as Assad's main protector on the diplomatic stage. Russian state offices were quiet for the Orthodox Christmas holiday. 
 
 Syrian state television played up the speech, showing footage of convoys of cars driving through main streets in Damascus. People waving the Syrian flag leaned out of car windows and some braved the cold and rain to walk alongside. 
 
 "It was a victorious speech that respects the martyred Syrian soldiers," said one man on state TV, adding that his brother had been killed fighting the opposition. 
 
 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. 
 
 Assad's government is still firmly entrenched in the capital and controls most of the densely populated southwest, the Mediterranean coast, the main north-south highway and military bases countrywide. Its helicopters and jets are able to strike rebel-held areas with impunity. 
 
 U.S. military cargo planes carrying equipment and personnel arrived at the Incirlik air base in Turkey on Monday, part of a deployment of NATO Patriot anti-missiles to bolster security along Turkey's 900-km (560-mile) border with Syria. Dutch Patriot missile batteries bound for Turkey left an army base in the Netherlands. 
 
 (Additional reporting by Ayat Basma in Beirut, Jeffrey Heller in Jerusalem, Vicky Buffery in Paris and Arshad Mohammed in Washington; writing by Peter Graff; editing by Philippa Fletcher and Giles Elgood) ||||| Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon: "Syrians must come together to save their country, protect their children and find a peaceful path to a better future" 
 
 Syria's government and main political opposition have traded bitter accusations on the first day of a major peace conference in Switzerland. 
 
 The opposition and US said President Bashar al-Assad had no legitimacy and must step down from power. 
 
 Syria's foreign minister had a terse exchange with the UN's Ban Ki-moon over the length of his speech and said only Syrians could decide Mr Assad's fate. 
 
 The conflict has left more than 100,000 dead and millions displaced. 
 
 The summit is discussing the Geneva communique which lays out a political transition plan for Syria. 
 
 Analysis This first day of talks was always expected to be somewhat ceremonial, with one formal speech after another. But already predictable fault lines are emerging. Syria's Foreign Minister Walid Muallem said his country was engaged in a war against terrorist groups, adding that only the Syrian people could decide on President Assad's future. The opposition leader Ahmad Jarba said the human rights violations in Syria were reminiscent of Nazi Germany, and suggested President Assad's departure was a precondition for peace. These two men won't be in the negotiating room together until Friday, then the talking will be in private, but it's expected to be equally tough. Key figures here - including Ban Ki-moon, John Kerry, Sergei Lavrov and William Hague - have publicly reminded the warring parties of the real price of this conflict. An "all encompassing disaster" said the UN secretary general, which Russia's foreign minister added had caused "incalculable suffering" to the Syrian people. 
 
 Wednesday's initial meeting, involving speeches from 40 or so foreign ministers - has now ended. The direct talks are scheduled to begin in Geneva on Friday. 
 
 At a fractious evening news conference, during which there were repeated calls for calm, Mr Ban spoke of the suffering in Syria, saying: "Enough is enough. The time has come to negotiate." 
 
 He said that "the really hard work begins on Friday", adding: "We have a difficult road ahead, but it can be done and it must be done." 
 
 Mr Ban dwelt on the Geneva communique, which calls for a transitional government in Syria, saying he was disappointed with the attitudes of both the Syrian government and its ally, Iran. 
 
 UN mediator Lakhdar Brahimi said he would speak to the Syrian government and opposition delegations separately on Thursday and that he hoped both teams would meet in the same room on Friday. 
 
 This would be the first face-to-face meeting between the Syrian government and the main opposition - the National Coalition - since the conflict began in 2011. 
 
 At his press conference, US Secretary of State John Kerry stressed that the Geneva communique and its call for political transition was the paramount focus of the summit. 
 
 "Every delegation, with one exception, embraced the Geneva communique," he said, referring to the Syrian government. 
 
 Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Syria's foreign minister and the Syrian national coalition president delivered angry statements 
 
 "No-one has done more to make Syria a magnet for terrorists than Bashar al-Assad," Mr Kerry said. "You cannot save Syria with Bashar al-Assad in power." 
 
 A member of the Syrian team, UN ambassador Bashar Jaafari, criticised the exclusion of Iran from the meeting, and condemned many of Wednesday's speeches as "provocative and repetitive statements based on hatred towards the Syrian government". 
 
 He also accused Gulf states of "inciting terrorism" in Syria. 
 
 'Inflammatory rhetoric' 
 
 The BBC's Paul Wood, in Montreux, says there were some extraordinarily ill-tempered scenes and some very direct language at the morning meeting. 
 
 Syria's Foreign Minister Walid Muallem said some states attending the talks had "Syrian blood on their hands" and called the opposition "traitors". 
 
 Image copyright Reuters Image caption The summit is taking place amid tight security in a Montreux hotel 
 
 Image copyright AP Image caption Outside the conference venue, supporters of President Bashar al-Assad staged a protest 
 
 Image copyright AFP Image caption Anti-government protesters staged a mock funeral, calling for an immediate ceasefire 
 
 Addressing Mr Kerry, he said: "No-one in the world has the right to confer or withdraw the legitimacy of a president, a constitution or a law, except for the Syrians themselves." 
 
 Mr Muallem ran far over the allotted 10-minute slot for each speaker, ignoring Mr Ban's attempts to intervene. 
 
 Geneva II talks 22 Jan: Conference opens in Montreux. Speeches from all delegates, including Syrian government and opposition 
 
 Conference opens in Montreux. Speeches from all delegates, including Syrian government and opposition Syria chief delegate - Foreign Minister Walid Muallem. Opposition chief delegate - Ahmed Jarba, head of the National Coalition 
 
 24 Jan: Talks to move to Geneva. Negotiations between Syrian delegations begin, moderated by Lakhdar Brahimi. No duration set. Media on Syria talks The story of the conflict Geneva II: Press review 
 
 "You live in New York. I live in Syria," Mr Muallem told the UN secretary general. "I have the right to give the Syrian version here. After three years of suffering, this is my right." 
 
 The US state department condemned Mr Muallem's remarks as "inflammatory rhetoric", and urged the government to take "real, concrete steps to increase humanitarian access and improve the lives of the people suffering the most". 
 
 The head of the National Coalition, Ahmad Jarba, said the Syrian government must sign up to a deal to transfer powers from Mr Assad. 
 
 Mr Jarba said that this would be "the preamble to Bashar al-Assad's resignation and his trial alongside all the criminals of his regime". 
 
 He added: "For the Syrians, time is now blood." 
 
 Mr Jarba displayed a photograph taken from a report by three war crimes investigators which alleged "systematic" torture and execution of opposition detainees in Syria. The report was released on Tuesday but dismissed as not credible by Damascus. 
 
 Geneva Communique A UN-backed meeting in 2012 issued the document and urged Syria to: Form transitional governing body 
 
 Start national dialogue 
 
 Review constitution and legal system 
 
 Hold free and fair elections Syria summit in words More on the Geneva communique Geneva's key role 
 
 Our correspondent says that when the talks go behind closed doors there will perhaps be a more constructive tone - with discussion of practical matters such as ceasefires and access for humanitarian aid. 
 
 Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the talks "will not be simple, will not be quick", but that there was "a historic responsibility on the shoulders of all participants". 
 
 He also repeated his insistence that Iran should be involved. 
 
 The UN withdrew its invitation to Iran this week over its refusal to back the Geneva communique. 
 
 Iran's President Hasan Rouhani said on Wednesday that the "lack of influential players" attending meant he doubted "its ability to resolve the Syria crisis". ||||| ALEPPO, Syria (Reuters) - Troops and tanks swept into a town near Damascus on Thursday in an assault aimed at crushing opposition to President Bashar al-Assad in Syria's increasingly bloody civil war. 
 
 Artillery and helicopters hammered the Sunni Muslim town of Daraya, killing 25 people and wounding 200 over the last 48 hours, opposition sources said. Soldiers moved in and raided houses. 
 
 "Artillery is firing from Qasioun Mountain in regular bursts of heavy barrages. I wonder what is left of the town," said one woman watching the shelling from Damascus. 
 
 At least 100 people, including 59 civilians, died in violence across the country, according to the opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Some 200 were killed on Wednesday. 
 
 There was little resistance as Assad's forces pushed toward the center of Daraya on the southwest edge of Damascus. Armed rebels had apparently already left. 
 
 "They are using mortar bombs to clear each sector. Then they enter it, while moving towards the center," said Abu Zeid, an activist speaking by phone from near Daraya. 
 
 Assad's military had driven insurgents from most of the areas they seized in and around the capital after a bomb killed four top security officials on July 18. But rebels have crept back, regrouping without taking on the army in pitched battles. 
 
 Tanks and troops attacked the southwest Damascus suburb of Mouadamiya on Monday and Tuesday, killing 86 people, half of them in cold blood, according to Assad's opponents. 
 
 It is hard to verify such assertions due to state curbs on independent media. Syrian leaders say they are fighting "armed terrorists" backed by Western and Gulf Arab nations out to topple Assad for his resistance to Israel and the United States. 
 
 CHECHEN KILLED 
 
 Foreign fighters from Arab and other countries have joined Syrian rebels, possibly including Rustam Gelayev, son of a late Chechen rebel warlord in Russia's Caucasus region. 
 
 Russian media and websites sympathetic to Islamist insurgents in the Caucasus reported that Gelayev had been killed in Syria, with some saying he had been fighting against Assad. 
 
 Russia's Kommersant daily, however, cited a relative of Gelayev as saying he had been studying in Syria, had decided to leave due to the violence and was killed on his way to Turkey. 
 
 In Syria's largest city, Aleppo, tank shells crashed into buildings in the rebel-held Saif al-Dawla district, even as displaced civilians came back to check their houses or pick up abandoned belongings. 
 
 A man in a dirty T-shirt and tattered sandals, who gave his name as Mohammed, said his home was in the nearby neighborhood of Salaheddine, now back in army hands after days of fighting. 
 
 "Me and my two brothers and our families left to stay with friends. I left with what I'm wearing. We are four families in one house," he said, as shells landed a few hundred yards away. "Does the world care about Syrians? I think not." 
 
 Aleppo, a once-prosperous commercial hub, is living through desperate times, divided by war, its streets stinking with rubbish and residents uncertain whether to flee or stay. 
 
 Rebel-held areas are at the mercy of army tanks, planes and helicopter gunships, with civilians now caught up in a conflict which Aleppo had mostly avoided until a rebel offensive in July. 
 
 "Where are we to go? Yesterday they hit the rebel base across the road, but nowhere is safe in Aleppo. The planes bomb everywhere," said a carpenter who feared to give his name. 
 
 "If there is a safe place in Syria, tell me. We don't have the money to leave the country," the 53-year-old added. 
 
 YouTube footage showed a funeral in Daraya of a mother and five children from the al-Sheikh family. Activists said the victims were killed by shellfire in the town after fleeing this week's military offensive on the Damascus suburb of Mouadamiya. 
 
 The bodies were wrapped in white shrouds, the children's faces exposed. Mourners laid green branches on the corpses and cried: "There is no god but Allah, Assad is the enemy of Allah." 
 
 BRAHIMI'S MISSION 
 
 International diplomacy has failed to break the conflict in Syria, which the United Nations says has cost more than 18,000 lives since a popular uprising erupted in March 2011. 
 
 Outgoing U.N.-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan has blamed splits in the U.N. Security Council, where Russia and China have repeatedly blocked Western efforts to ramp up pressure on Assad, for the failure of his peace mission. 
 
 Babacar Gaye, the head of U.N. monitors sent to observe an abortive ceasefire declared by Annan on April 12, was expected to leave Damascus on Thursday. The mission's mandate has expired and was not renewed due to the spiraling violence. 
 
 Annan's successor, veteran Algerian diplomat Lakhdar Brahimi, was flying to New York for a week of consultations at the United Nations, his spokesman Ahmad Fawzi said. 
 
 It is not clear how Brahimi can succeed where Annan failed, given the deadlock among big powers and the intractable conflict in Syria, where Assad's minority Alawite-based ruling system is pitted against mostly Sunni opponents. 
 
 The upheaval in Syria, at the heart of a volatile Middle East, is already spilling over into its neighbors. 
 
 Sporadic clashes between Sunnis and Alawites erupted for a fourth day in Lebanon's northern city of Tripoli, breaching a truce agreed less than 24 hours earlier, after Sunni gunmen shot dead an Alawite man. Nine people were wounded in the fighting. 
 
 At least 13 people have been killed and more than 100 wounded in Sunni-Alawite fighting in Lebanon this week that has been fuelled by sectarian tensions in Syria. 
 
 Ankara has grown alarmed at apparent links between Kurdish militants fighting in southeast Turkey and the conflict in Syria. Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has accused Assad of backing Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) fighters and says Turkey's military might act to counter any threat from the PKK in Syria. 
 
 Turkish and U.S. diplomats, intelligence and military officials held talks in Ankara on Thursday expected to touch on a possible buffer zone in Syria and steps to stop PKK militants in the border region from exploiting the chaos. 
 
 French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian suggested Western nations and allies could consider setting up a limited no-fly zone over part of Syria without a U.N. Security Council mandate. 
 
 It was the first time Paris has talked of intervention by an "international coalition" rather than by the U.N. 
 
 "The scenario mentioned by (U.S. Secretary of State) Hillary Clinton of a particular zone where there could be a banned area is something that needs to be studied," Le Drian said. 
 
 (Additional reporting by Erika Solomon and Mariam Karouny in Beirut, Khaled Yacoub Oweis in Amman, Nicholas Tattersall in Istanbul, Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva and Steve Gutterman in Moscow; Writing by Alistair Lyon; Editing by Andrew Roche)
– Syria's civil war raged on today, without the slightest pause of acknowledgement for yesterday's rare Bashar al-Assad speech. It was billed as the unveiling of a "peace plan," but Assad offered essentially no concessions and spent much of the speech justifying his bloody crackdown. And there may be repercussions: In it, he dismissed the work of UN envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, saying, "Everyone who comes to Syria knows that Syria accepts advice, but not orders," and the New York Times predicts such remarks might cause Brahimi to wash his hands of the conflict. That would present the US and other "Friends of Syria" with a quandary: Get more involved, or potentially watch the conflict continue indefinitely. And though celebratory gunfire rang out afterward, even some loyalists were unimpressed. "It sounded more like gloating than making promises," one Assad supporter tells Reuters. "Everything he suggests now, it is too late. The rebels aren't going to stop." Indeed, hours after the speech, fresh clashes broke out along the road to Damascus' international airport, and regime artillery reportedly hit a district just three miles from where Assad spoke. One Assad critic in a hard-hit district agreed that the speech meant little. "Here, no one cares about this speech. They care about food and electricity."