Syrians voted Sunday to elect a new parliament as the Damascus government grapples with international sanctions and a crumbling economy after retaking large parts of the war-torn country.

Syrian regime forces Sunday were set to retake a key motorway connecting the capital Damascus to second city Aleppo following weeks of battles in the rebel-held Idlib region, a monitor said.

Dozens of fighters and civilians were killed in Syria's Idlib province as the government pressed a deadly offensive Thursday towards a key town in the country's last rebel bastion.

Two civilians were killed and a number of people were injured in an Israeli attack on the Syrian capital of Damascus.

Pro-government forces and opposition fighters exchanged fire in northwest Syria on Tuesday, killing seven civilians, a war monitor said, after Damascus scrapped a ceasefire.

A bomb attack hit near the Russian embassy in the Syrian capital Thursday but caused no casualties, in the second such blast in Damascus in less than a week.

A bomb blast hit the capital of war-torn Syria on Sunday and a "terrorist" was arrested, state media said, in a rare attack in the city that has been largely insulated from violence..

Jordanians are flocking to the Syrian capital Damascus for the first time in years for tourism and trade after the reopening of a border crossing that had been closed through years of war.

An electrical fault caused a series of loud blasts early on Sunday near a military airbase outside the Syrian capital Damascus, a Syrian military source cited by state media and an Iranian official said.

Iranian Defence Minister Amir Hatami travelled to Damascus on Sunday for a two-day visit.

Their belongings piled nearby, elderly displaced Syrians struggled against the wind as they fastened a white tarpaulin on the metal frame of their makeshift new home in the country's south.

The death toll is expected to increase as some of the 60 injured in the strikes were in a critical condition, he said.