Earlier Sunday, an armed group targeted a military bus with a roadside bomb in the Damascus suburb of Sahnaya, killing six soldiers, including two officers, according to official SANA news agency.

Meanwhile, the Doha-based al-Jazeera TV cited activists as saying that at least 48 people were killed during the army's operations in restive neighborhoods of Damascus.

The Syrian government has blamed the country's months-long unrest on armed groups and "foreign conspiracy."

Friday, january 27, 2012, armed forces loyal to President Bashar Assad barraged residential buildings with mortars and machine-gun fire, killing at least 30 people, including a family of women and children during a day of sectarian killings and kidnappings in the besieged Syrian city of Homs,

At least 64 people were killed in Syria on Sunday, according to an opposition activist group, as the Arab League suspended a monitoring mission designed to protect Syrian civilians from government-sponsored violence.

The dead included 19 in Homs, 15 in Hama and 16 around Damascus, according to the Local Coordination Committees of Syria. Three children were among those killed, the group said.

Heavy clashes took place in the Eastern Ghouta area outside Damascus, the LCC said. At least 50 people were wounded in random bombardment by government forces, the group said, adding the government forces attacked residential areas and cut off electricity, water and communication.