Syrian regime forces are keeping up their pressure on the country's strategic southwest, using artillery, airstrikes and dropping barrel bombs on Friday that target rebel-held parts of the region, activists said.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said more than 12 barrel bombs hit the province of Daraa, the first use of the rudimentary and non-discriminatory weapons there in over a year. Rockets and artillery shells have also targeted northern and eastern Daraa, and there were reports of overnight airstrikes on Busr al-Harir, a northeast Daraa town where regime troops are trying to isolate the rebels.
Rebel factions, meanwhile, said they responded with missiles at a regime air base in the adjacent Sweida province.
The Observatory said 16 people have been killed in regime strikes since Tuesday, including nine children. At least 12,000 people have been displaced by the fighting.
The regime campaign in the southwestern Syrian region bordering Jordan and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights comes despite US warnings of "serious repercussions" for anyone violating a de-escalation agreement in place since last July. The truce, referred to as a de-escalation zone, was negotiated between Russia, Washington and Jordan and has kept the area calm.
Also Friday, at least one Syrian soldier was killed and seven others wounded in a US-led coalition strike in central Syria , the Observatory said.
The monitor said the bombing raid targeted a Syrian regime position in a desert area in the central province of Homs.
"There was a vehicle moving around that gathering point, which lies just 20 kilometers away from Al-Tanf," the Observatory's director Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP.
"The vehicle and the position were both targeted," he told AFP. One Syrian soldier was killed and another seven were wounded, according to Abdel Rahman.
Al-Tanf is a garrison located along Syria's southeastern border with Jordan and is used by US-led coalition forces to train Syrian rebels to fight ISIS.
