NGO: Syria Warplanes Strike Eastern Belt of Damascus

Warplanes pummeled rebel positions across the eastern suburbs of Damascus on Wednesday, after a day of clashes and air strikes killed at least 182 people in Syria, a watchdog said.

"Warplanes carried out five air raids on the farmlands around the towns of Saqba and Douma and smoke was seen rising from the targeted areas" east of Damascus, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The Local Coordination Committees, a network of activists on the ground, also reported aerial strikes on Douma that it said caused significant damage.

The Observatory reported 30 civilians, including four women and five children, and 13 rebels killed in air raids, tank shelling and clashes Tuesday in and around Douma and another eastern Damascus suburb, Harasta.

In the northwestern province of Idlib, fierce clashes erupted between troops and rebels who attacked military checkpoints on the highway near the town of Jisr al-Shughur.

Warplanes hammered the villages of Deir Sharqi and Maarshmisha and the town of Maaret al-Numan, which rebels seized on October 9, cutting off a key army supply route along the Damascus-Aleppo highway.

Nearby, rebels and jihadist fighters of the Al-Nusra Front clashed with soldiers at the embattled Wadi Daif army base, the Observatory said.

The jihadists were also locked in battle with government forces in the eastern city of Deir Ezzor, as the army tried to push into rebel-held districts.

Elsewhere in Deir Ezzor province, air raids were reported in the town of Mohassen, which the Observatory says is one of the most important rebel strongholds in the province.

In Syria's second city Aleppo, where fighting has raged since mid-July, fierce clashes broke out in the southwest and the northwest districts, residents said.

The Observatory reported clashes near the Aleppo airport road after troops attempted to storm the area.

More than 36,000 people, the majority civilians, have been killed in Syria since the uprising against Bashar Assad's regime broke out in March 2011, according to the Britain-based monitor.

The watchdog collects its information from a country-wide network of activists, lawyers and medics in civilian and military hospitals.