Four suicide car bombs have struck Syrian regime targets in the Qalamoun region north of Damascus, killing at least seven soldiers, a monitor and state news agency SANA said.

Wednesday’s attacks come a day after troops loyal to President Bashar al-Assad drove opposition forces from the nearby strategic village of Qara.

The London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported two attacks in the town of Nabek.

"At least seven regime troops were killed in the two attacks and five others are in critical condition," Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman said.

A Syrian security source told the AFP news agency that there was just one explosion at a checkpoint in Nabek.

Meanwhile, SANA reported two suicide attacks in front of the Bassel hospital in Deir Attiya, a majority Christian town in army control north of Nabek.

Hezbollah involvement

Regime forces backed by Lebanon's Hezbollah have launched a major assault on Qalamoun, a mountainous region straddling key supply lines between Damascus and Homs, as well as opposition forces smuggling routes criss-crossing the border with nearby Lebanon.

Fighting raged elsewhere in Qalamoun, mainly around the opposition bastion of Yabrud, which the army shelled Wednesday, and Deir Attiya.

Jets launched air strikes on opposition positions around Deir Attiya, said the Observatory, while ongoing clashes killed at least eight opposition fighters.

An estimated 120,000 people have been killed in Syria's uprising, which began with peaceful protests against Assad in March 2011 but escalated into a full-blown insurgency after his troops launched a brutal crackdown.

PHOTO CAPTION

A handout picture released by SANA on November 19, 2013 shows an empty street in Qara, after the Syrian army said they captured the village in the mountainous Qalamoun region.

Aljazeera