DAMASCUS, Syria
(AP) -- Syrian state media say a car bomb has struck in a Damascus
suburb, killing at least 18 people and wounding 56.
The news agency SANA says the powerful blast hit the Syrian capital's suburb of Jaramana late on Tuesday.
The suburb is an overwhelmingly pro-regime district located just a few kilometers (miles) southeast of Damascus.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack.
Rebels
fighting to oust President Bashar Assad from power have frequently
targeted areas where regime supporters and members of the government or
security forces live.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.
Syrian
rebels captured a major air base in the north of the country on
Tuesday, depriving President Bashar Assad's forces of a main post near
the border with Turkey in one of the opposition's strongest campaigns in
months against the regime in Damascus, activists said.
The
capturing of Mannagh helicopter base will also clear an important
supply route from Turkey for the rebels, in need of weapons and troops
to strengthen the battle for Assad's ouster. The opposition's triumph on
the northern front coincided with the rebels' assault on the heartland
of Assad's minority Alawite sect in the west that brought the opposition
closer to the president's ancestral home in Latakia province.
The
Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said members of the
al-Qaida-linked Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant led the battle for
the air base. After months of fighting with government troops, they
launched an all-out offensive against it Monday when a Saudi suicide
attacker blew up his vehicle outside the command center. They captured
the sprawling compound before dawn Tuesday, according to another
activist group, the Aleppo Media Center.
Syria
state media denied that the base had fully fallen with the official
news service SANA reporting that the "armed forces are confronting
terrorists with great courage" inside the base, using a term the regime
uses for rebels, fighting to topple Assad's regime.
At
least 10 rebels, including foreign fighters were killed in the
fighting, according to the Observatory, adding that rebels took prisoner
a number of government troops. It did not say how many soldiers died in
the fighting.
Rebel victories have been
comparatively rare in recent months, and Assad's forces have been on the
offensive in the center of the country.
Mannagh,
in the northern Aleppo province, is deep inside territory dominated by
the Syrian opposition. Rebels have been trying since last year to
capture it, but faced strong resistance from defenders.
Rebels
seized part of it in June, and since then its fall has been widely
expected. The air base is the largest to fall in rebel hands since
opposition forces captured the Taftanaz base in the northern province of
Idlib in January.
Syria main's opposition
bloc, the Western-backed Syrian National Coalition, hailed the capturing
of the base, saying rebels "fully liberated the Mannagh air base and
will transfer it from a regime tool for oppression to a minaret of
liberation."
Amateur videos released by
activists showed rebels walking inside the base amid damaged
helicopters. Several tanks and armored personnel carriers could also be
seen in the base.
"Thanks to God, the airport
was fully liberated and here are the spoils," said the narrator as
rebels could be seen standing in front of an armored personnel carrier
and green wooden ammunition boxes.
The videos appeared genuine and corresponded to other Associated Press reporting on the events depicted.
The
capture of Mannagh could now free hundreds of opposition fighters to
reinforce other fronts, including the sieges of the nearby
Shiite-majority regime-held towns of Nubul and Zahra.
Syria's
conflict has taken on an increasingly sectarian tone in the last year,
pitting predominantly Sunni Muslim rebels against members of Assad's
Alawite sect.
The fall of Mannagh followed the
rebel capture of eleven villages in the Alawite heartland on the
country's Mediterranean coast. The opposition's gains in Latakia
province, an Assad's stronghold that has been peaceful and under Assad's
control for much of the conflict, now in its third year, is a symbolic
blow to the regime. The advances were overshadowed by reports that more
than 80 people were killed in two of the villages overran by rebels,
activists said. The spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of
reprisals.
If confirmed, the slayings will
likely deepen sectarian tensions in the conflict that has started as
largely peaceful uprising against Assad's rule in March 2011. It turned
into a civil war after opposition supporters took up arms to fight a
brutal government crackdown. More than 100,000 people have been killed
in the violence.
Members of Syria Sunni Muslim
majority dominate the rebel ranks and Assad's regime is mostly made up
of Alawaite minority, an offshoot sect of Shiite Islam.
The
Observatory reported heavy fighting in Latakia on Tuesday. State news
service SANA said the army has launched a counter-offensive in the
coastal province and has by evening recaptured two villages from the
rebels. SANA did not say how many people were killed in the fighting.
Both
sides in Syria's civil war accuse each other of mass killings that are
increasingly motivated by sectarian hate. The opposition also claims
that Assad's forces have used chemical weapons in their attacks.
The
SNC said Tuesday that the Syrian government has carried out more than
20 "massacres" during the holy month of Ramadan alone, killing hundreds
of civilians.
The coalition's spokesman Louy
Safi told reporters in Istanbul said government troops used chemical
agents in three recent attacks, and said Assad's forces is also targeted
civilians with ballistic missiles.
Also
Tuesday, pro-government daily Al-Watan said rebel kidnapped Sheik
Badreddine Ghazal, a prominent Alawite cleric in Latakia region. The
paper said he was taken Monday from the village of Barouda, one of those
captured by earlier rebels.
A government
official in Damascus confirmed Ghazal's abduction saying the cleric was
"severely beaten" by his captors. The official, who spoke on condition
of anonymity in line with regulations, did not give further details.
More
than 100,000 people have been killed in the conflict and millions have
been displaced and forced out of their homes, seeking shelter in safer
parts of the country or in neighboring states such as Lebanon, Jordan,
Iraq and Turkey.
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Associated Press writer Bassem Mroue contributed to this report.