Blasts at Syria air force compound kill dozens: NGO

DAMASCUS: Twin attacks by suicide bombers on a Syrian air force compound near Damascus killed dozens of people, a watchdog said on Tuesday, adding that it feared for the safety of hundreds of prisoners being held there.

Turkey, meanwhile, again warned Syria that it would not hesitate to retaliate for any strike on its soil as the country's top military commander visited troops stationed along the reinforced border.

And with fighting spilling across into both Turkey and Lebanon, UN chief Ban Ki-moon urged President Bashar al-Assad's regime to declare a unilateral truce while NATO head Anders Fogh Rasmussen urged restraint by all parties.

Elsewhere on Syria's increasingly violent battlefield, state television said troops entered the rebel district of Khaldiyeh in the central city of Homs and were "pursuing the remnants of the terrorists" -- the regime's term for rebels.

There was no official comment on Monday night's suicide attacks in the town of Harasta, northeast of the capital, but a security source told AFP the assault had been largely foiled, although several people were hurt when one vehicle blew up.

The attacks were claimed by the Al-Nusra Front jihadist group, which said one attacker drove a booby-trapped car and a second an explosives-packed ambulance.

Syrian Observatory for Human Rights director Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP that "dozens of people" died in the twin suicide bombings.

"The fate of hundreds of prisoners being held in the basements of the (building) is still unknown," added Abdel Rahman.

"The regime has not said a word about what happened last night. I hold the regime responsible for the fate of the prisoners. They shouldn't be holding all of these people in the first place."

Due to severe restrictions on journalists operating on the ground in Syria, AFP was not able to verify either of the widely differing accounts.

The Britain-based Observatory said the attacks sparked intense fighting in Harasta between rebels and the army, which at daybreak pounded the town with shells.

It said Syrian forces on Tuesday also rained shells down on rebel belts in the second city of Aleppo, which has been fiercely contested since mid-July, and in Idlib province near the Turkish border. (AFP)