Dozens killed in Syria, watchdog to probe chlorine claims

Around 60 people were killed in Syria's Damascus and Homs today, as an international watchdog said it would probe alleged chlorine attacks in the country.
Meanwhile, the parliament speaker said four new candidates had registered for next month's presidential election, expected to return Bashar al-Assad to office despite the civil war, which has left vast swathes of the country out of his control.
A barrage of mortar shells fired by rebels hit a central neighbourhood in the capital early today, killing at least 14 people, state media reported.
"Fourteen citizens were killed and 86 others wounded by terrorists who targeted the Shaghur neighbourhood in Damascus," the SANA news agency said, using the regime term for rebels.

The attack hit a school of Islamic jurisprudence where some students are as young as 14, though it was unclear if children were among the dead.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitoring group, put the toll at 17, adding that the figure could rise because several of the injured were in critical condition.

Hours later, a car bomb ripped through a crowded area of the country's third city Homs, followed shortly afterwards by a rocket attack on the same neighbourhood, the provincial governor told AFP.
Talal Barazi said 45 people were killed in the double attack on the Zahra neighbourhood.

"The rocket fell about half an hour after the bombing on the same area, where there was a crowd of people" trying to help those wounded in the blast, he said.
The attack was one of the deadliest to hit the central city, where rebels control just a few remaining districts, most of them under a tight government siege.