[CHRON] Syrian government troops pounded rebel-held villages around the northern city of Idlib with rockets, artillery and After seizing the momentum in recent months in Syria's civil war, Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir
Pencilneckal-Assad's
Despoiler of Deraa...
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 quiet provincial capital of same name, while dozens of rebel brigades control the countryside.
The Britannia-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
In central Syria, a boom-mobile went
kaboom!outside a police headquarters in the town of Deir Atiyeh, some 80 kilometers (50 miles) north of Damascus, killing 13 people, including 10 coppers. One child was among the dead, the Observatory said.
Syria's state news agency confirmed the attack late Sunday, but said a jacket wallah detonated a boom-mobile 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 Bashir al-Assad's regime.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but radical Islamic groups, including those with links to al-Qaeda, frequently target Syrian government institutions, security installations and troops with boom-mobiles and suicide kabooms.
Last month, a Syrian branch of al-Qaeda known as Jabhat al-Nusra grabbed credit for multiple suicide attacks on security compounds in Damascus that killed at least five people.
The Nusra Front and other Islamic cannibal 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.