Soldiers were seen in the area, with troops in armored personnel carriers opening fire with heavy machine guns at unseen targets.

The clashes broke out in the afternoon between the residents of the neighborhood of Bab al-Tabbaneh, which supports the anti-government insurgency in Syria, and the adjacent neighborhood of Jabal Mohsen, which supports Syrian President Bashar Assad.

Events in Syria have raised tensions among different groups in some neighboring countries.

Sunday's fighting followed a successful operation carried out by Syrian troops on al-Qusayr, a militant-held town near the Lebanese border earlier in the day.

Soldiers were said to be fighting house-to-house trying to free the area from al-Nusra front terrorists and strengthen their grip on a strategic strip of land running from the capital to the Mediterranean coast.

Syria has been struggling with s Western-backed insurgency since March 2011which has left many people dead and forced many to leave the country to escape the war.

Syrian government says the bloody chaos is being charged from outside the country while the US, Israel, Qatar and some of their allies have been supporting the insurgents to topple the legitimate government of Bashar Assad.

A recent report by the Financial Times revealed that the Qatari government has spent some three billion dollars in the past two years to support the anti-government groups in Syria, which far exceeds what provided by any other government.