Four people were killed today in a suicide bombing in central Damascus, Syrian state television reported, after rebels seized a historic Christian town north of the capital.
State television said the suicide attack in the Jisr al-Abyad neighbourhood killed four and injured 17, and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said it appeared to have targeted a government building.
North of the capital, rebels exchanged fire with government troops outside Maalula, a day after opposition forces captured the Christian hamlet in the strategic Qalamoun region.
The small town is renowned as a symbol of the long Christian presence in Syria and is famous for the fact that many residents still speak the ancient language Aramaic, which Jesus Christ is believed to have spoken.
The town fell to the opposition late yesterday and remained in rebel hands today, the Observatory said.
"There are some exchanges of fire with army forces outside the town, but there is no major fighting and the opposition controls Maalula," Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman said.
Rebel forces, including the jihadist Al-Nusra Front, swept into Maalula from the surrounding hills after rolling explosive-laden tires onto regime troops below.
Most of Maalula's 5,000 residents fled in September, when rebel forces first entered the town before being pushed back to its outskirts by the Syrian army.
But the Vatican's ambassador to Syria Mario Zenari told AFP that 12 Syrian and Lebanese Orthodox nuns had been abducted by rebels.
All communications with the town have been cut since yesterday, an AFP correspondent in Damascus said.
A military source told Syrian daily Al-Watan that regime reinforcements were headed to Maalula.
"The presence of the terrorists inside Maalula is but a matter of hours. A military force is headed there to help the forces present on the outskirts of the town cleanse it of terrorists," he said.
The rebel capture of Maalula comes amid a regime advance elsewhere in the surrounding Qalamoun region, where government troops have taken the towns of Qara and Deir Attiyeh.
They have also seized 60 per cent of the biggest town in the region, Nabuk, and the Observatory said fierce clashes continued there today, with two men and a woman killed by regime shelling.
