Syria army defectors attack Assad's military

Updated at 7:49 a.m. Eastern

BEIRUT - Syrian army defectors say they have launched several attacks on President Bashar Assad's military targets near the capital Damascus, including one on a Syrian intelligence facility.

The Free Syrian Army says in a statement that its main attack early Wednesday targeted a compound run by the Air Force Intelligence in the Damascus suburb of Harasta.

The renegade group says the other attacks targeted military checkpoints in the Damascus suburbs of Douma, Qaboun and Arabeen and Saqba.

Later Wednesday, a Syrian activist group said army defectors had killed at least eight soldiers and security forces in an attack on an army checkpoint in the Hama province.

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says the Hama attack happened in the village of Kfar Zeita.

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The attacks by the Free Syrian Army come two days after defectors killed 34 soldiers and members of the security in the southern province of Daraa, on what was one of the bloodiest days of the 8-month-old uprising.

The U.N. says that more than 3,500 people have been killed since Assad launched a crackdown in mid-March.