The attacks come a day after troops loyal to
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneckal-Assad
Scourge of Qusayr...
made gains in the Qalamoun area north of Damascus.
The attacks by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and Al-Nusra Front, two Al-Qaeda-affiliated groups, came after rebels were driven out of nearby Qara village on Tuesday, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The Observatory reported two attacks in the town of Nabek, while SANA reported two others in Deir Attiya.
"At least seven regime troops were killed in the two attacks (in Nabek) and five others are at death's door," Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman said.
A Syrian security source told AFP there was just one kaboom at a checkpoint in Nabek.
"The soldiers at the checkpoint stopped a suspicious car and the driver, who was a jacket wallah wearing an boom belt, tried to escape but was rubbed out by soldiers," the source said.
"However,
the difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits...
the vehicle went
kaboom!," the source added, saying there had been "victims."
Meanwhile,
...back at the shouting match, a new, even louder, voice was to be heard...
SANA reported two suicide kabooms in front of the Bassel hospital in Deir Attiya, a majority Christian town in army control north of Nabek.
"Several guards were killed, then the forces of Evil broke into the hospital and tried to destroy the equipment but the army managed to chase them down," said SANA.
The Observatory said the rebels had entered the hospital and captured a maimed officer, before being thrown out by the army, leaving the man behind.
The Britannia-based group did not report the two boom-mobiles at Deir Attiya.
Loyalists backed by Leb's Hizbullah have launched a major assault on Qalamoun, a mountainous region straddling key supply lines between Damascus and Homs, as well as rebel smuggling routes criss-crossing the border with Leb.
Fighting raged elsewhere in Qalamoun, mainly around the rebel bastion of Yabrud, which the army shelled Wednesday, and Deir Attiya.
Warplanes launched air strikes on rebel positions around Deir Attiya, said the Observatory, while ongoing festivities killed at least eight opposition fighters.
The army had earlier said it was hunting jihadists across the region, while rebels vowed to return to Qara.
Elsewhere, a mortar round struck near central Damascus's Umayyad square, and two others hit the capital's Kassaa neighborhood, said the Observatory.