Damascus - AFP
Syrian warplanes launched two strikes on Qaboon in northeastern Damascus on Wednesday, as rebels fighting President Bashar al-Assad's regime seized three army posts near the ceasefire line with Israel, a watchdog said. "Two air strikes were carried out on rebel-held buildings in Qaboon," said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, adding that violence in Damascus has risen after insurgents seized control of Jobar district in the city's east. "There is now fighting in Tadamun, Assali, Yarmuk, Qadam and Qaboon districts," Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP of outlying neighbourhoods of the capital that have previously seen intermittent violence. Elsewhere, rebels seized three small army positions in Quneitra province in southern Syria near the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, said the watchdog. In the central city of Homs, the army pressed its campaign against rebel enclaves, pounding the district of Khaldiyeh in the heart of the city, the Observatory added. Wednesday's violence comes a day after at least 127 people were killed in violence across Syria, the watchdog said -- 47 civilians, 55 rebels and 25 soldiers. The United Nations says that more than 70,000 people have been killed in Syria's conflict, which erupted in 2011 after an anti-regime revolt morphed into an insurgency when the army unleashed a brutal crackdown against dissent.