Shells hit Russian Embassy in Syrian capital

Rescue workers extinguish a burning car after an explosion in Idlib, Syria, on Sunday. (AP)

BEIRUT: Syrian state media said on Sunday shells hit the Russian Embassy in Damascus causing material damage.
SANA said two shells were fired at the embassy, one hitting the compound while the other fell nearby.
Syrian fighters in the suburbs of the capital have previously struck the Russian Embassy.
Moscow is a strong supporter of President Bashar Assad and has been involved in the six-year war since September 2015.
The attack in Damascus came hours after a bomb exploded near a hospital in the fighter-held northwestern city of Idlib wounding five people.
The Syrian Civil Defense, more popularly known as the White Helmets, said the wounded included two children.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) also said five were wounded including children.
Separately on Sunday, Syrian state television reported an explosion north of the government-held coastal city of Latakia and cited reports of casualties.
The blast took place in Ras Shamra, a town about 12 km north of the city, state television said. It gave no further details.
On Saturday, the Syrian army backed by heavy Russian airstrikes seized a string of oil wells in southwest Raqqa province, as retreating Daesh militants battled to defend their remaining territory in the country.
Sources said the army had taken control of Wahab, Al-Fahd, Dbaysan, Al-Qseer, Abu Al-Qatat and Abu Qatash oil fields and several other villages in the desert area that lies in the southwest of the province.
The seized oil fields lie south of the town of Rasafa and its oil wells, which the army took last month from the militants in their first major territorial gains inside the province.
The army and Iranian-backed militias have in the last few months been advancing east of Aleppo city and seizing swathes of territory west of the Euphrates River that militants have pulled out of to defend their de facto capital of Raqqa, where they are now battling US-backed troops inside the city.