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Syria Fires Rockets on Rebel-Held Areas Near Damascus


Fighters from the Free Syrian Army's Al Majd Brigades dig a trench in the rebel-held besieged area of al-Marj in the Eastern Ghouta of Damascus, Syria, Feb. 18, 2017.
Fighters from the Free Syrian Army's Al Majd Brigades dig a trench in the rebel-held besieged area of al-Marj in the Eastern Ghouta of Damascus, Syria, Feb. 18, 2017.

Syrian government forces fired rockets at a rebel-held area on Damascus’s outskirts Sunday, pressing an attack that began the day before and has killed up to 16 people, a medical worker and war monitors said.

The medical worker and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said it was the biggest attack on the Qaboun area, to the city’s northeast, in at least two years.

16 dead in two days of attacks

On Saturday, a government sniper killed one person in the area and rockets hit a cemetery on Qaboun’s outskirts, the medical worker, who asked not to be named, told Reuters.

The British-based Observatory also reported attacks on a cemetery. Reuters could not independently verify the accounts. There was no immediate government comment on the Damascus fighting.

The Observatory said 16 people had died in the violence around Qaboun since Saturday, the highest death toll from fighting there for more than two years.

The medical worker in nearby Eastern Ghouta, just outside Damascus, said at least 13 people had died. He said he could hear explosions coming from Qaboun early Sunday.

Cease-fire shaky

Violence in western Syria has increasingly tarnished a shaky cease-fire, which took effect December 30, backed by Damascus ally Russia and Turkey, which supports rebels.

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    Reuters

    Reuters is a news agency founded in 1851 and owned by the Thomson Reuters Corporation based in Toronto, Canada. One of the world's largest wire services, it provides financial news as well as international coverage in over 16 languages to more than 1000 newspapers and 750 broadcasters around the globe.

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