Syria jets bomb Homs

Rebels launched a surprise assault on Homs's Baba Amr at dawn on Sunday, hoping to take back the devastated neighbourhood they lost to Assad's forces last year. (AAP)

Syrian jets have bombed rebel forces attempting to recapture a keenly contested district of Homs.

Syrian jets have bombed rebel forces attempting to recapture a keenly contested district of Homs, as mortar shells slammed into a Damascus neighbourhood killing at least three people.

The army's retaliation on Monday came as al-Qaeda claimed the killing of 48 Syrian soldiers on Iraqi territory last week.

On the diplomatic front, a top official of Syria's tolerated opposition met Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to appeal for key Damascus ally Moscow to relent in its refusal to back calls on President Bashar al-Assad to step down.

In Brussels, European Union foreign ministers emerged from talks with UN-Arab League envoy Lakhdar Brahimi on the conflict which is about to enter its third year, divided over whether to arm the rebels or push for a political solution.

Rebels launched a surprise assault on Homs's Baba Amr at dawn on Sunday, hoping to take back the devastated neighbourhood which they lost to Assad's forces last year.

The regime responded with air strikes and shelling, and sent reinforcements to the city which was "completely sealed", the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

"The army will at all costs hunt down the rebels even if it destroys the neighbourhood," Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman said.

"The regime cannot allow them to stay ... because the neighbourhood of Baba Amr is known as an (anti-regime) symbol in the international media."

Pro-government newspaper Al-Watan said "the army thwarted an attempt to infiltrate Baba Amr... inflicting an enormous loss of human life and weapons on the armed groups," which it said included the jihadist Al-Nusra Front.

Regime troops seized Baba Amr from rebels just over a year ago after a bloody month-long siege that left the district in ruins and claimed hundreds of lives, including those of two foreign journalists.

At least 90 people were killed on Monday in violence across the country, the Observatory said.

In Brussels, UN envoy Brahimi insisted that "the military solution is out of the question", speaking after talks with the EU's 27 foreign ministers.

The ministers were sharply divided, with Britain, France and Italy tipping in favour of eventual military aid for the opposition, and Germany and others seeing that as too risky.

In Geneva, a UN commission of inquiry on Syria called for direct access to the UN Security Council to make the case for referring crimes committed in the war-torn country to the International Criminal Court.

It also said the Damascus regime appeared to be using militias to carry out sometimes sectarian mass killings in Syria, where the UN says more than 70,000 people have been killed in two years of fighting.

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