Rocket, mortar fire pounds Damascus, rebels seize Deraa base

Islamist fighters struck the Syrian capital with at least 38 rockets Sunday, killing seven people, a monitoring group said, in one of heaviest attacks on Damascus in over a year, The Daily Star reported.

The development came as rebel groups in seized a key army base in Deraa province in the south and on the eve of a scheduled four days of talks on the Syria crisis in Moscow, designed to bring together regime and opposition representatives.

State media confirmed the attacks in the capital and said at least four people were killed. It said the army was retaliating.

The Islam Army, based in the eastern Ghouta region near Damascus, had warned earlier that it would hit back against airstrikes last week in the Ghouta, which killed dozens.

Damascus residents said Sunday’s rockets seemed to be mortar bombs and Katyushas.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the violence in the country, called it the heaviest attack on the capital for more than a year. Throughout Damascus has been relatively calm, shielded from the war since government forces pushed the rebels back in 2013.

The rockets and mortar bombs struck around two dozen separate locations, according to anti-regime activist groups. The Islam Army’s leader, Zahran Alloush, announced a temporary halt to the campaign in the late afternoon, after air raid sirens had sounded on several occasions during the day, activists said.

The Islam Army also claimed a rocket attack on regime positions in the city of Latakia, which killed two people and wounded 10, the Observatory said.

In Deraa, insurgent groups – from the Free Syrian Army to Islamist groups to Al-Qaeda’s Nusra Front – seized an important government army base in the town of Sheikh Miskeen, fighters who took part in the battle said.