Violence Kills 159 as Intense Air Raids Hit Targets across Syria

Warplanes and helicopter gunships carried out intense air raids across Syria on Tuesday as fighting raged in and around the capital between regime and rebel forces, a watchdog said.

The raids killed five people in the town of Tabqa in the northern province of Raqa, and six others, including two women and three children, in Sermin in the northwestern province of Idlib, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The air force also battered the southern province of Daraa, Homs in central Syria and Aleppo in the north, including the town of Khan al-Assal which rebels claimed to have captured on Monday, the Observatory said.

Five other people were died when artillery rounds struck Douma, a satellite suburb northeast of Damascus, where violence killed another seven people, including two children.

In the south of the capital, troops pounded the Palestinian refugee camp of Yarmuk for the third consecutive day while regime forces and rebels were locked in fierce fighting inside the camp, the Observatory said.

Government forces also shelled neighborhoods in the south, east and north of Damascus.

On Monday at least 159 people were killed in violence across Syria, said the Observatory, which relies on a network of activists and medics on the ground for its information.