Twin bombings kill 32 in Syria

DAMASCUS - At least 32 people had been killed Sunday in two separate bombings that have marked an intensification of violence in the unrest-torn country.

Sunday has started with an explosion of a passenger bus that had been targeted with explosive devices while en route from the central town of Misyaf to the capital Damascus. The bus blast killed at least four people, according to the state-run SANA news agency.

As it started, Sunday ended with a huge blast that struck the northern Aleppo province and killed at least 27 people, adding more agony to the already-suffering people in that key area.

The blast rocked the Malaab al-Baladi area in Aleppo, an area grouping three hospitals and a school sheltering displaced people. The state media said people are still being buried under the piles of rubble and debris, adding that firefighters and other workers are franticly looking for survivors under the rubbles while also digging out the dead.

The state-TV aired live coverage of the site, showing scenes of carnage and huge destruction. A woman appeared standing amid the twisted debris crying for her dead son while other restive men were surrounding her trying to ease her pain, one of them was sympathizing with her "consider me your son too."

Aleppo has emerged as a stage for pitch battles between the government troops and the armed rebels, who have pledged to keep fighting in Aleppo to subdue it under their control.

Aside from the blasts, clashes between the government troops and opposition rebels have continued Sunday in many hotspots across the battered Arab state, but most notably in the Damascus' districts of Tadamun, Yalda and Hajar al-Aswad.

Heavy black smoke bellowed the district of Tadamun on Sunday and rose up to cloud the sky of the capital as clashes have been raging on for almost a week in that part of Damascus.

Syria's pro-government media said that the thick cloud of smoke was caused by the explosion of a building that had been used by the armed insurgent groups as storage for explosives.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 90 people had been killed Sunday in different parts of Syria, while the Local Coordination Committees, another activists' network, placed the death toll at 160.

Both groups reported clashes and shelling by the government troops on several restive areas nationwide. They also blame the Syrian regime of being behind the bulk of the deadly violence, while the Syrian government blames the ongoing violence on "armed terrorist groups" backed with foreign Jihadists and western plot.

Activists said as many as 20,000 people have so far been killed since the crisis in Syria began last year amid reports that a total of 8,000 army and security personnel have so far been killed.