Air strikes, car bombs reported in Syrian cities, killing dozens

A Syrian military air strike killed and wounded dozens of people when it hit an olive oil press near the northern city of Idlib on Tuesday, activists said.

Activist Tareq Abdelhaq said at least 20 people were killed and 50 wounded in the attack, citing residents near the Abu Hilal olive oil press, 2 km (1.2 miles) west of Idlib city.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said it could not yet determine the number of casualties, but said dozens were killed or hurt in the strike.

Meanwhile clashes were reported in on a route leading to an airport in Damascus, Al Arabiya reported, as a car bomb hit a police checkpoint in a town southwest of the city on Tuesday morning.

The army deployed in large numbers nearby in a bid to suppress insurgents there, a monitoring group said.

“A car bomb exploded at dawn, targeting a military police checkpoint in Jdeidet Artouz,” said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. “This was followed by intense shooting, as regular troops continued to be deployed in the fields between Kfar Sousa and Daraya.”

It was not immediately clear if anyone was killed by the car bomb or the fighting that ensued.

Kfar Sousa lies on the southern belt of the capital, with the small town of Daraya situated just a few kilometers (miles) to the southwest.

Al Arabiya TV, citing activists, reported that the Free Syrian Army destroyed eight army tanks in Daraya.

Fighting broke out in Damascus over the summer, pitting rebels and the army against each other in several southern districts of the capital.

Insurgents have developed rear bases in areas of Damascus province where anti-regime sentiment is strong, and which is home to some of the their best organized and fiercest groups.

The army is currently pushing to quell the rebellion there.

Elsewhere, clashes raged in the Hamdaniyeh district of Aleppo, Syria’s commercial capital where fighting has reached a stalemate after five months of deadly urban combat.

Syrian rebels virtually cut off roads to Aleppo from neighboring Raqa province on Monday, severing regime supply lines.

Faced with an increasingly offensive revolt, the regime has been reducing its territorial ambitions to focus on Damascus, central Syria and Alawite bastions, as it digs in for a long war, analysts say.

Troops have been bombing rebel positions on the outskirts of the capital, including in Daraya, the site of the worst massacre in the 20-month conflict, with state media saying on Monday that troops had inflicted heavy losses on “Al-Qaeda terrorists” in their advance.

More than 40,000 people have been killed in Syria since the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad broke out in March last year, according to the Observatory, which relies on a network of activists, doctors and lawyers for its data.