Mortar fire on Damascus kills child, hurts 40: state news

Mortar rounds fired on the Syrian capital Damascus on Tuesday killed a child and wounded at least 41 people, among them more children, AFP reports according to state media.

"A child was killed and 41 others, most of them children, were injured by mortar rounds fired by terrorists at schools in Bab Touma and Al-Duwaila in Damascus," the official SANA news agency reported.

State media and the Syrian regime refers to all those seeking President Bashar al-Assad's ouster as "terrorists".

Citing a police souce, SANA said one attack hit a school in Bab Touma, killing one child and wounding 36, and a second hit a cluster of schools near a church in Al-Duwaila, injuring five people.

The mortar attacks were also reported by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitor, which said one child had been killed and more than 40 people wounded.

Rebel forces hold some territory on the outskirts of the capital from which they have regularly launched mortar and rocket attacks targeting central Damascus.

The attacks have frequently hit in upscale neighbourhoods housing embassies and security facilities as well as the Old City, killing civilians.

Elsewhere, the Observatory and state media reported that nine people, including a player with Syria's youth football team, Tarek Ghrair, were killed late Monday in mortar fire on the central city of Homs.

"Nine people, including a footballer in Syria's youth team, were killed in mortar fire on the Hamra and Karam al-Shami neighbourhoods," the Observatory said.

The districts are under government control, and SANA reported that Ghrair had been killed by a "terrorist mortar round".