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Summary Three women were among seven killed in the bombardment of the opposition bastion of Douma.
Syrian troops shelled several rebel strongholds overnight and on Saturday, including Douma in northern Damascus and the central city of Homs, with a watchdog reporting at least 26 people killed nationwide.Three women were among seven killed in the bombardment of the opposition bastion of Douma, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.The Local Coordination Committees (LCC), a grassroots network of activists, said regime forces have been shelling Douma for three days.Elsewhere in Damascus province, a man, his wife and their child were killed when their house in the town of Irbin was hit by a shell, the Observatory said.It also reported that regime forces shot dead a man at a checkpoint in the Damascus province town of Al-Tal, while a student was shot dead on the outskirts of Ashrafiyet Sahnaya.Two others were killed during the night in Kfar Batna, also in Damascus province, while one woman died in Maadamiyat al-Sham in the same province.Shelling and shooting by regime forces over various districts of Homs city -- including Khalidiyeh, Bab Tadmur, Jourat al-Shiah and Safsafa -- killed five people, the Observatory said.It reported the Homs killings shortly after warning that more than 1,000 families were besieged in several districts of the city, which have been pounded intermittently by regime forces for several months.Elsewhere, the Observatory said, four regime troops were killed during the night, one in a blast in Damascus and three in clashes in rebel bastion Rastan in Homs province.Anti-regime activist Abu Rawan described the shelling of Rastan as insane. In addition, every car that enters or leaves the town gets shot at with heavy machinegun fire, he told AFP via Skype.In the southern province of Daraa, two rebel leaders were killed in clashes near a regime checkpoint.The Observatory said at least 100 people were arrested by regime forces in Damascus, while the LCC reported house-to-house raids and mass arrests in the central province of Hama, one of the first to join the anti-regime uprising.
