All Across Syria, A Bloody Day

By Sophia Jones

Published November 5, 2012 at 5:43 PM EST

The fighting in Syria was both nasty and widespread on Monday. Here's a summary of some of the worst fighting:

-- Two deadly car bombings took place, one in a residential neighborhood in Damascus that killed 11 people, according to Syria's state-run SANA news agency. The other one, near the central city of Hama, generated wildly conflicting claims. An activist group, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said the suicide attack killed 50 government soldiers and allied gunmen. But the government put the death toll at two civilians.

-- Palestinian refugees, who have mostly stayed out of the Syrian fighting, fought on both the pro-government and anti-government sides in battles around Damascus, according to The Associated Press. One of the flashpoints was Yarmouk, the biggest Palestinian refugee camp in Syria.

Overall, the fighting in the Syrian capital was described as some of the worst in months.

-- The northern city of Aleppo, one of the main battlegrounds over the past few months, was again the scene of heavy shooting.

"We are living in terror at night," a Syrian pharmacist named Samir told Agence France-Presse following fighting in Aleppo. "We hear everything — gunbattles, tank shelling, explosions ... The clashes before dawn today were the worst all week."

-- The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also reported air raids that targeted several sites in northern Syria, including the town of Haram, where it said 20 rebels were killed.

(Sophia Jones is an intern with NPR News.)