al-Qaeda fighters at Damascus.

Syria: 12 killed in clashes between Army, al-Qaeda fighters at Damascus.

Beirut | Lebanon | 02 Oct 2013 :: Activists reported heavy clashes between Syrian troops and al-Qaeda-linked fighters in northern Damascus have killed at least 12 soldiers and pro-government militiamen.

International weapons inspectors are in Damascus to begin their complex task of overseeing the destruction of Syria's chemical weapons against the backdrop of the civil war.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Wednesday that the 12 died the day before in the city's Barzeh district.

Clashes in Barzeh flared up on Monday when the army launched a push to dislodge the rebels, including al-Qaeda-linked Jabhat al-Nusra fighters, from the district.

The Observatory says the opposition has been trying to capture the area for months in an attempt to take the battle for the capital closer to President Bashar Assad's seat of power.(Courtesy:The Indian Express)

Syria firing missiles into civilian areas, rights group says.

Syria firing missiles into civilian areas, rights group says.

Residents dig through rubble in Aleppo, Syria,

 searching for survivors following an alleged

 missile attack by government forces.

ANTAKYA | Turkey  | 06 Aug 2013 ::  The Syrian government has fired highly destructive ballistic missiles into populated civilian areas, killing many, including children, a human rights group reported Monday.

At least 215 people, 100 of them children, have been killed in nine apparent missile attacks from February to July, according to Human Rights Watch, which said its representatives visited seven of the sites.

The rights group said the repeated use of high-explosive weapons, including destructive Scud missiles, in populated areas indicated that the Syrian military was willfully using "methods of warfare incapable of distinguishing between civilians and combatants, a serious violation of international humanitarian law."

“In towns and cities in opposition controlled areas throughout northern Syria, civilians cannot escape the reach of these destructive weapons,” said Ole Solvang, the group’s senior emergencies researcher.

In two of the attacks, nearby rebel military sites were not struck by the missiles, the group reported, while in seven other attacks, there were no apparent military targets.

The group said the latest attack came less than two weeks ago in the Bab Al-Nairab neighborhood in Aleppo, killing at least 33 civilians, including 17 children.

On July 26 at dusk, just as families across the city were sitting down for iftaar, the meal to end the daylong Ramadan fast, a ballistic missile struck several homes, residents told representatives of the rights group.

Residents said the worked until the morning hours digging through the rubble to find survivors and pull out the bodies, the group reported.

About 10 homes were destroyed, and the explosion’s impact extended across two neighborhoods, the group said, and an entire nine-member family was killed.(Courtesy:Los Angeles Times)

At least 10 killed in Homs mortar attack.

At least 10 killed in Homs mortar attack.

Syrian opposition and government forces are engaged in a renewed struggle for the strategic city

A Syrian rebel runs for cover in Homs
 (photo credit: AP/Fadi Zaidan/File)

DAMASCUS | Syria | AP | 30 Jul 2013 ::  A late-night mortar attack killed at least 10 people in a government-held district in the embattled central city of Homs, an official and opposition activists said Tuesday.

The government official, who spoke anonymously in line with regulations, says 10 died and 26 were wounded when three mortar rounds hit the neighborhood of Dablan before dawn. Many living in the district fled there to escape fighting elsewhere in the city.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 11 people including a child were killed, and the attack happened late Monday close to midnight. The Observatory is citing hospital sources in Homs.

The attack came hours after government forces took control of another district in the city, Khaldiyeh that has been a rebel stronghold since the start of the 2-year-old conflict.(Courtesy:The Times of Israel)