[An Nahar] Fierce festivities raged Friday between Syrian troops and rebels in northeastern Damascus as government warplanes raided myrmidon strongholds, a monitoring group said.The Britannia-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least seven rebels were killed in regime shelling and air raids in the district of Jobar.
Violence has escalated in Jobar since February 9 when a Jordanian jacket wallah from the jihadist Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant
... the current version of al-Qaeda in Iraq, just as blood-thirsty and well-beloved as the original...
killed 32 government forces.
Since then festivities have intensified between the rebels and forces loyal to Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir
Pencilneckal-Assad
Scourge of Qusayr...
, said the Observatory which relies on a network of activists and medics on the ground for its reports.
Friday's shelling also spilled into the district of Qabun further north of Jobar, the Observatory said.
In other violence, regime forces stormed the village of Khirbet al-Naqus in the central province of Hama on Friday and reportedly killed nine men, said the monitoring group.
It quoted activists as saying the men were "summarily executed" in the village square.
Five children were killed, meanwhile, in regime air raids in the northern province of Idlib.