Syrian regime shelling of funeral kills 9

BEIRUT: At least nine people were killed on Saturday when Syrian regime forces launched a barrage of rockets that hit a funeral on the edges of the Syrian capital, a monitor said.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said “seven rockets and several shells hit areas on the edges of Qabun,” a northeastern district of Damascus held by the opposition. “The shelling targeted a cemetery while someone was being buried there,” said Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman.
Earlier, Syrian warplanes bombarded a besieged opposition-held district of Homs, killing at least two people and raising the death toll from nearly two weeks of airstrikes there to more than 20, the Observatory said.
Warplanes also hit insurgent-controlled areas in Daraa in southern Syria during a series of heavy raids over the last day, it said.
For months, Al-Waer, the last opposition-held neighborhood in the western city of Homs, had been spared much of the intense violence raging elsewhere in the country, as the government tried to conclude an agreement with insurgents there.
Bombardment of the area resumed earlier this month, rescue workers and the Observatory said, adding that three people were killed on Saturday, bringing the death toll since then to at least 30 people.
An opposition media activist in Al-Waer said two people had been killed and put February’s overall death toll at more than 20.
A military media unit run by Damascus ally Hezbollah said warplanes and artillery had targeted insurgents in Al-Waer after opposition sniper fire hit areas neighboring the district.
Damascus has tried to conclude a deal in Al-Waer that would see opposition fighters and their families leave the district and the government take over.
Under similar agreements elsewhere in western Syria, opposition fighters have left with light weapons and headed mostly for Idlib province.