Damascus Mortar Fire Kills 5, One Dead in Homs Blast

Rebel mortar fire on a government-held district of Damascus killed five people Tuesday, state media said, as a car bomb killed one person in a pro-government area of third city Homs.

Five people were also wounded by the mortar fire on the south Damascus district of Kissweh, the state SANA news agency reported.

The car bomb in Homs wounded 14 people in a district mainly inhabited members of the same Alawite community as President Bashar Assad, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The central city has been hit by a series of car bombs since rebels withdrew from the city center under a U.N.-brokered truce last month after enduring a withering two-year siege by the army.

Southeast of the capital, pro-government forces fired three missiles at the rebel-held town of Mleiha, which has been virtually flattened by months of bombardment by the army and its Lebanese ally Hizbullah.

The death toll from a Friday truck bombing in the central province of Hama meanwhile rose to 43, including 11 children, the Observatory said.

The bombing was claimed by the Islamic Front, Syria's largest rebel alliance.