– Ghouta fighting –
Abdel Rahman said the casualty count could yet rise because more victims were believed to be buried under the rubble and many of the wounded were in critical condition.

“Rescue teams are still sifting through the wreckage,” he said.

It was not immediately clear whether the blast was caused by air strikes or was the result of the kind of internal clashes that sometimes break out between jihadist and rebel factions.

After shrinking to barely a sixth of the country at the height of the nearly seven-year-old conflict, the areas under government control now cover more than 50 percent of Syrian territory.

Another pocket where rebels are still holding out however is Eastern Ghouta, a semi-rural area east of the capital Damascus that is home to some 400,000 people.

Rebels led by the Jaish al-Islam group had in recent days surrounded the army’s only military base in the area but the state news agency SANA said Monday the siege had been broken.

“Units from the Syrian Arab Army have brought an end to the encirclement of the Armoured Vehicles Base in Harasta,” it said, adding that operations were ongoing to fully secure the base.

According to the Observatory, the fighting in Harasta since the base was surrounded in late December left 72 regime fighters and 87 rebels dead.

The shelling and bombardment of besieged Ghouta, where the humanitarian conditions have sharply deteriorated in recent months, has also claimed a heavy toll on civilians.

The latest casualties came on Monday when air strikes killed a child and two other civilians in Madira, a village in Eastern Ghouta, the Observatory said.

More than 340,000 people have been killed and millions have been driven from their homes since Syria’s conflict erupted with anti-government protests in 2011.