Big blast rattle town near Syrian capital

DAMASCUS - Many people were reported to have been killed or injured when a "violent blast" rocked the Nabe al- Fijeh town near the Syrian capital Damascus on Tuesday, activists and the pan-Arab al-Mayadeen reported.

The exact number of casualties has not been determined with the absence of official comments.

The blast came just hours after a booby-trapped car went off in the northern province of al-Raqaa and killed two people.

It also comes as the clashes between the Syrian troops and armed rebels are on the rise, most notably in restive suburbs of Damascus.

Syria's helicopter gunships hovered over some suburbs of Damascus, reportedly pounding rebels' strongholds. The sounds of shelling and gunfire could be heard from a number of areas in the capital.

The Local Coordination Committees (LCC), an activists' network, said that around 20 people had been killed due the aerial bombardment by Syrian troops on the sprawling Damascus' suburb of eastern al-Ghouta.

The LCC placed the death toll of Tuesday's violence at 70. Still, such accounts could not be checked independently.

The Syrian crisis has been dragging on since a year and nine months with no foreseeable solution on the horizon.