Syria: Scores Killed In Aleppo Gun Fight

At least 14 people have been killed in gun attacks between security troops and armed forces in Syria's largest city Aleppo.

Residents in the city said they had been hearing gun shots since two car bombs exploded there last week.

The attacks mark the beginning of a new, violent chapter for the formerly peaceful city, compared to the escalating violence in other parts of the country.

More than 90 people have been injured in the gun attacks.

Seventeen-year-old Abdu was one of the innocent citizens injured during the fight.

"Masked people in a black car kept shooting citizens randomly and my son was shot," Abdu's mother said.

A doctor at the city's Laqi Hospital said he had never seen so many people injured or killed.

"The injured includes security soldiers and citizens but most were security soldiers," he said.

"Aleppo wasn't like this before," he added.

Meanwhile, an oil pipeline in the central city of Homs has also been hit, setting off a huge blaze, according to a Syrian activist group.

The Local Coordination Committees said the pipeline was hit on Wednesday morning in the neighbourhood of Baba Amr, which has been shelled by regime troops for the past 12 days.

Video by Homs activists broadcast on social networking sites shows thick black smoke billowing from what appears to be a residential area.

Homs is home to one of Syria's two oil refineries. It is also one of the cities hardest hit by President Bashar Assad's crackdown on a popular uprising that began in March.

The UN said in January more than 5,400 people have been killed in the crackdown.

Oil and gas pipelines have been subjected to attacks in Syria in the past months.

Elite Syrian forces backed by armoured personnel carriers also stormed part of Damascus on Wednesday, firing machine guns in the air, in the closest deployment of troops to the centre of the capital in an 11-month uprising, residents and activists said.

Troops from the Fourth Armoured Division and Republican Guards erected roadblocks in main streets of Barzeh neighbourhood, searched houses and made arrests.

Residents said the troops were looking for opposition activists and members of the Free Syrian Army, which has been providing security for protests against President Assad in the district.

The increasing violence across the country comes after Mr Assad ordered a referendum to take place on February 26 on a new constitution that would allow political parties other than the ruling Baath Party to govern the country.

Amendments to the country's constitution were a key demand by the opposition at the beginning of the country's uprising.

However, many opposition leaders now say they will settle for nothing less than Mr Assad's departure.