The shelling on Kfar Batna today appeared to be part of an ongoing government offensive against contested and rebel-held areas around the capital.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the dead include two women and a child.
Mohammed Saeed, an activist based in the nearby suburb of Douma, said the shelling began early today and lasted several hours, killing 13 people.
Saeed said Kfar Batna is usually relatively quiet and shelters a large number of Syrians displaced from other, more tense suburbs of Damascus.
