Clashes erupted near two Christian areas of the Syrian capital Wednesday, August 1 for the first time in the nearly 17-month uprising, as the battle for Aleppo entered its fifth day and President Bashar al-Assad hailed the "heroic" army, AFP said.

As rebels and troops battled in Damascus and Aleppo, exiled opposition leaders bickered over strategy, with a prominent dissident announcing he had been tasked to form a government in exile, drawing criticism from the main opposition bloc.

A firefight erupted early Wednesday on the outskirts of Damascus' Bab Tuma and Bab Sharqi areas, two traditional Christian districts of Damascus, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Bab Tuma and Bab Sharqi in the Old City of Damascus were previously popular with tourists and were the scene of several pro-regime protests in the past.

Earlier the Local Coordination Committees (LCC) that organises protests on the ground, reported a blast and heavy gunfire from Baghdad Street, a main arterial route through the city.

The LCC also said that the capital's southern suburb of Tadamun was hit by mortar fire at dawn.

Since July 20, the battle between the rebels and government forces had focused on the country's commercial capital Aleppo in the north.