Army rocket fire kills at least 8 in Damascus: monitor

At least eight people were killed in an army rocket attack on southern Damascus's Al-Hajar Al-Aswad neighbourhood today, a monitoring group said.
The "bombardment... Which killed at least eight people, comes amid an escalation by the regime in southern Damascus and (rebel) areas in the countryside around it," said Syrian Observatory for Human Rights director Rami Abdel Rahman.
The toll from today's violence is likely to rise, he added.
"The bombardment is part of an attempt by the regime to retake southern Damascus," several of whose neighbourhoods are have for months been under a suffocating army siege, he added.
More broadly, "the army is trying to totally secure the capital. To date, it has claimed many times it has complete control over Damascus, but rebels are positioned in many areas in the capital's southern belt", he said.

The Observatory was unable to immediately verify whether the dead were fighters or civilians.

"The regime's bombardment is arbitrary. Troops fire rockets at buildings, without knowing who is in them. Such attacks do not distinguish between civilians and combattants and therefore constitute a war crime," Abdel Rahman said.
Activists in southern Damascus also reported the attack, claiming "dozens" had been wounded.
"Many houses have been destroyed, and we have documented that (the bombing involved) more than 20 rockets and dozens of mortar rounds," according to the Damascus Media Office, a network of anti-regime activists.
The deaths in Al-Hajar Al-Aswad come a day after seven civilians, including five members of one family, were killed in a similar shelling in there.