BEIRUT (AP)
-- Syrian government troops pounded rebel-held villages around the
northern city of Idlib with rockets, artillery and airstrikes, killing
at least 29 people, including six children, activists said Monday.
After
seizing the momentum in recent months in Syria's civil war, President
Bashar Assad's forces are on the offensive against the rebels on several
fronts, including in Idlib province along the border with Turkey.
Government forces are in firm control of the provincial capital of same
name, while dozens of rebel brigades control the countryside.
The
Britain-based Observatory for Human Rights said government shelling
overnight targeted five villages near Idlib city. Eight women and six
children were among the 29 people killed, according to the Observatory.
The
group, which relies on a network of activists inside Syria, said the
deadliest attack took place in the village of Maghra, where a rocket
slammed into a row of houses, killing 13 people. Three nearby villages -
Bara, Basamis and Kafr Nabl - were hit by artillery shells that killed
another 13 people. Three others died in an airstrike on the village
Iblin, the Observatory said.
In central Syria,
a car bomb exploded outside a police headquarters in the town of Deir
Atiyeh, some 80 kilometers (50 miles) north of Damascus, killing 13
people, including 10 policemen. One child was among the dead, the
Observatory said.
Syria's state news agency
confirmed the attack late Sunday, but said a suicide bomber detonated an
explosives-laden car in a residential area of the town, causing an
unknown number of casualties. It said "terrorists" were behind the blast
- a government term for rebels fighting to topple President Bashar
Assad's regime.
There was no immediate claim
of responsibility, but radical Islamic groups, including those with
links to al-Qaida, frequently target Syrian government institutions,
security installations and troops with car bombs and suicide attacks.
Last
month, a Syrian branch of al-Qaida known as Jabhat al-Nusra claimed
responsibility for multiple suicide attacks on security compounds in
Damascus that killed at least five people.
The
Nusra Front and other Islamic extremist groups have been the most
effective fighting force on the opposition side in the past year,
spearheading many of the rebel offensives that have captured military
bases, towns and villages.
The U.N. estimates
that more than 93,000 people have been killed in Syria since the revolt
began in March 2011 with largely peaceful protests against the Assad
regime. It turned into a civil war after opposition supporters took up
arms to fight a brutal government crackdown.