New blasts rattle Syrian capital

DAMASCUS - Multiple blasts rocked the Syrian capital of Damascus on Saturday, leaving a number of people killed or injured amid incessant military showdown across the conflict- torn country.

At least three people were killed and many others wounded when a booby-trapped car went off in the Damascus' district of Ush al- Warwar on Saturday evening, the state-run SANA news agency said.

Quoting a source at the Tishrin Military Hospital, SANA said that the hospital had received three dead bodies and 35 injured, including eight children, some of them are in critical conditions.

The bombing took place at a square that is usually packed with people, and has caused big material damages to commercial buildings and parking cars, SANA said.

Another explosive-laden vehicle exploded Saturday in the Damascus' district of Tadamun, killing six armed men who had been rigging it with explosives.

In the Palestinian camp of Yarmouk in Damascus, a car bomb went off near a popular marketplace but caused injuries with no fatal casualties, reports said.

Also in Yarmouk, two shell bombs struck two areas in the camp, killing one person and injuring two others.

Meanwhile, the authorities dismantled another car bomb that was set to go off in the eastern Damascus' suburb of Jaramana, which has been plagued by a series of deadly blasts lately.

Meanwhile, the opposition activists reported clashes in several hotspots nationwide and aerial bombardment on many rebels' strongholds around the capital and elsewhere in the country.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a London-based activists' network, said that a total of 110 people had been killed Saturday across Syria, adding that the death toll includes 37 civilians, 42 rebel fighters, four defected soldiers and 27 regular troops.

Yet, the activists' record could not be checked independently.

Separately, SANA said that the internet service in Syria resumed on Saturday after a two-day breakdown.

The Syrian government blamed the outage in internet service and mobile coverage in some areas on the armed groups' sabotage acts against cellular broadcast centers.

As part of the ongoing conflict, SANA said that the army has carried out a series of military operations against al-Qaida- affiliated groups at the Damascus' suburbs and destroyed their hideouts and ammunition.

The army has clashed with terrorists and killed many of them in the Damascus' suburbs of Daraya and al-Hajar al-Asswad.

In the northern city of Aleppo, SANA said that the army had continued its pursuit of armed groups and killed several terrorists from the al-Qaida-affiliated Al-Nusra Front and destroyed six cars full of weapons and terrorists at Kouris and Rasem al-Aboud towns.

The violence in Syria has been dragging on since last year, sending people on the edge with the failure of all international efforts to put an end to it.