BEIRUT: At least 66 civilians were killed across Syria on Monday and scores injured as regime troops pounded the city of Homs with mortars and launched an assault on Zabadani, near the capital, activists said.
State media said three soldiers were also killed by what it said was an "armed terrorist gang" in the northwestern province of Idlib.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 42 civilians were killed in the central city of Homs, but added that the death toll was likely to rise because many of the wounded were in critical condition.
The shelling, which began at dawn, was mainly targeting the neighbourhoods of Khaldiyeh, Baba Amro, Inshaat and Bab Sbaa, the Britain-based group said said.
Syrian state television accused "armed gangs" of being behind the latest violence in Homs.
The Observatory said 10 people were also killed on Monday in shelling by security forces on the town of Rastan, in Homs province. Two more were killed in Hula and Qusair, also in Homs province.
Elsewhere, two civilians, including a child, were killed when their car came under fire from security forces at Sarghaya, near Damascus.
In the country's second city of Aleppo in the north, a 45-year-old male passenger aboard a bus was shot dead, the Observatory said.
The army also launched a fierce assault on the town of Zabadani, northwest of the capital and near the border with Lebanon, the rights watchdog said, adding that three civilians were killed in the neighbouring town of Madaya.
"Troops backed by hundreds of armoured vehicles have launched an assault on the town of Zabadani ... which is undergoing heavy tank shelling," the Observatory said.
In Idlib, six civilians were killed, three of them -- two woman and a child -- in a rocket attack on a field.
Opposition groups and activists had said at the weekend that at least 200 civilians were killed in a "massacre" in Homs on Friday night when regime forces pounded rebel neighbourhoods of the city with tanks and mortars.
On Sunday, activists reported more shelling in the city, with at least 23 civilians killed.