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Ammon News - By Taylor Luck/ Jordan Times

Around 300 Syrians enter Kingdom via desert crossings — UNHCR

AMMAN — Violence intensified along the Jordanian-Syrian border for the seventh straight day on Thursday, closing off main access routes to Jordan and forcing hundreds of refugees to enter the country via lesser-travelled eastern desert routes.

According to the UN Refugee Agency, some 300 Syrians crossed into Jordan on Thursday via eastern desert routes near the Iraqi border, one day after a record 325 entered via the desert crossings.

As of late Thursday, some 4,000 displaced Syrians remained stranded by the violence along the border with Jordan, local residents in Syria claimed.

Free Syrian Army (FSA) officials say the intensified fighting has cut off nearly all routes to Tal Shihab — one of the last remaining rebel strongholds in southwest Syria and a critical transit point on smuggling routes into Jordan — forcing rebel forces to continue a week-long suspension of refugee crossing operations.

“We still cannot guarantee the safety of large groups crossing into Jordan,” said Abu Mohammad Al Darawi, commander of an FSA battalion based outside the southern city of Daraa.

“Regime and Hizbollah forces have surrounded southern Syria,” he claimed.

Meanwhile, violence continued to flare across southern Syria on Thursday, with Jordanian security sources and Syrian rebels reporting heavy clashes and shelling in several Syrian border villages.

Jordan has opened its borders to over 560,000 Syrians since the onset of the conflict in March 2011.