Mortar shell kills 8 near Syrian capital

Armed men fired a mortar shell on the Damascus' suburb of Jaramana Saturday evening, killing eight people and injuring many others, witnesses and the pro-government al-Ekhbaria TV said. The TV said that the mortar had been followed with the launching of a hand-made missile on the same area by the armed groups but stopped short of giving further details. Meanwhile, the pro-government Sham FM radio said the shell struck a passenger bus at the entrance of Jaramana. Meanwhile, activists reported clashes and government troops' shelling on hotspots in the southern countryside of Damascus, reporting many deaths due to the ongoing violence. Pro-government reports also said that shell bombs struck the Palestinian camp of Yarmouk on Saturday, as an amateur video footage appeared online claiming to show a destroyed residential building in the Yarmouk area. Violence seems on the rise in Syria with no foreseeable solution in the near future.