Car bomb in Damascus kills seven, wounds 15: monitoring group

DAMASCUS (Reuters) - A car bomb killed at least seven civilians on Tuesday when it exploded in a southern Damascus neighborhood, a monitoring group said. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 15 people had also been injured in the blast, which hit the district of Tadamon, where President Bashar al-Assad's forces have been fighting rebels for months. Syrian state television said "terrorists" were behind the explosion, a term it commonly uses to refer to rebels who are fighting to topple Assad. The Britain-based Observatory, which has a network of activists across Syria, said the blast had destroyed several buildings. What began as a peaceful pro-democracy movement 2-1/2 years ago has turned into a civil war in which more than 100,000 people have died. (Reporting By Stephen Kalin; Editing by Kevin Liffey)