Car bomb hits Syria's Deir Al Zor: state TV

Damascus: A car bomb that rocked the eastern Syrian city of Deir Al Zor on Saturday killed nine people and wounded about 100, the official Sana news agency said.

It said the bombing was carried out by a suicide bomber and that the dead included guards at a military installation which is near a housing complex.

"A car bomb exploded in the Gazi Ayyash neighbourhood of Deir Al Zor," state TV reported, adding the blast was "a terrorist attack" that caused widespread "material damage."

The explosion went off on a road housing a military and air force intelligence headquarters, and a military hospital, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The attack, the first of its kind in Deir Al Zor since an anti-regime uprising broke out in Syria in March last year, came a day after Syrian troops foiled a would-be car bombing in the same city.

Elsewhere in the country, a rocket slammed into ruling Baath party offices in the province of Aleppo on Saturday, a monitoring group said, a day after unprecedented anti-regime protests in Syria's second city.

"Unidentified gunmen targeted a Baath party office in Aleppo's Al Bab town with a rocket-propelled grenade," the Observatory said.

Immediately after the Aleppo attack, clashes broke out between the gunmen and guards, but there were no reports of any casualties.

In Jabal Azzawya, in the flashpoint northwestern province of Idlib, clashes caused an unknown number of casualties, the Britain-based watchdog said, after a series of explosions were heard in the restive area.

The rights group added that three military vehicles were targeted in Jabal Azzawya, while one of the attacks was carried out with a rocket-propelled grenade.

On the outskirts of Sarmada town, also in Idlib province, clashes broke out between regime troops and armed rebels, the monitoring group added.

What started out as a popular uprising has over time developed into an increasingly militarised revolt, after President Bashar Al Assad's regime used force to crack down on peaceful protesters across the country.

According to the Observatory, more than 12,000 people have been killed in Syria since the revolt broke out in March last year, most of them civilians.