Gun battles continued throughout Damascus while the Syrian capital was hit by a second large explosion reported to hit the city today. A video published by the Syrian Youth Union showed flames and black smoke rising from an area near Abasiyeen square.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights meanwhile climbed several dozen had been killed or wounded after an air strike hit the northern town of Aazaz.
Witnesses told the AFP news agency at least five bodies had been pulled from the rubble of about 10 houses flattened in the attack in Aazaz, a key rebel bastion just north of the city of Aleppo near the border with Turkey, while many more were trapped.
Earlier a bomb exploded in central Damascus near the hotel used by the UN observer mission in Syria.
"There was a huge explosion and a fireball, and soldiers were thrown to the ground by the blast," a military officer told AFP at the scene, adding that five people suffered burns or shrapnel wounds. No UN staff member was hurt.
Although the explosion occurred close to the hotel, its target was not clear. The area is home to a Syrian army officers' club and a building belonging to the ruling Baath Party. It is also not far from the army command.
The rebel Free Syrian Army claimed the bomb attack targeted a military headquarters near a hotel used by UN observers as a warning to President Bashar al-Assad that it could strike anytime at the very heart of the regime.
"This is another criminal operation which proves the (extent of the) attack which Syria has been exposed to and the criminal and barbaric nature of those who carry out these attacks - and their backers in Syria and abroad," Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad said at the scene where fire-fighters were dousing a smouldering fuel tanker.
Damascus has been rocked by several bomb blasts, including an attack last month at the national security headquarters that killed three of President Bashar al-Assad's top security chiefs.
The head of the UN Supervision Mission in Syria (UNSMIS), General Babacar Gaye, had staged a press conference the hotel, the Dama Rose, on Monday.
The UN Security Council is due to meet on Thursday to discuss the future of the observer mission, whose mandate expires on August 19.
Activists say more than 20,000 people have been killed since then and the conflict has morphed into a full-out civil war.
As fierce fighting continues in Syria, Muslim heads of state are expected to suspend Syria from the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation at a summit in Mecca on Wednesday, over the objections of Iran, Assad's closest ally.
The decision by the 57-member body is symbolic and will have little practical effect on Syria, but it will underline Assad's isolation in much of the Sunni-majority Islamic world.
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