THREE suicide car bombs and a mortar barrage ripped through a government-controlled district of central Aleppo housing a military officers' club yesterday, killing 48 people, according to activists.

The co-ordinated attacks came just days after rebels launched an offensive against President Bashar al Assad's forces in Syria's biggest city, leading to heavy fighting and a fire which gutted a large part of its medieval covered market.

State news agency Sana said suicide bombers detonated two explosive-laden cars in the main square, Saadallah al Jabiri, which is lined on its eastern flank by the military club, two hotels and a telecoms office.

The explosions flattened at least one building, and were followed by a volley of mortar bombs into the square and attempted suicide bombings by three rebels carrying explosives, it said.

Another bomb blew up a few hundred yards away on the edge of the Old City, where rebels have been battling Assad's forces.

State TV showed three dead men disguised as soldiers in army fatigues who it said were shot by security forces before they could detonate explosive-packed belts. One appeared to have a trigger device strapped to his wrist.

Another pro-Assad station, al Ikhbariya TV, broadcast footage of four dead men, including one body being pulled from the rubble of a collapsed building and loaded on to the back of a truck.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 48 were killed, mostly from security forces, while Sana put the death toll at 31.

The attacks in Aleppo followed last week's bombing of military staff headquarters in Damascus.

In July, rebels killed four of Mr Assad's senior security officials in a Damascus bombing which coincided with a rebel offensive in the capital.

Government forces have since pushed rebel fighers back to the outskirts of Damascus. But they have lost control of swathes of northern Syria, as well as several border crossings with Turkey and Iraq, and failed to push the fighters out of Aleppo.

Opposition activists say 30,000 people have been killed in the uprising, which has grown into a civil war with sectarian overtones and threatens to draw in regional Sunni Muslim and Shi'ite powers.

Sources in Lebanon said seven members of Lebanon's Shi'ite Muslim militant group Hezbollah, an ally of the Syrian president, were killed inside Syria on Sunday in a rocket attack. Three were killed instantly while four others were wounded and died subsequently, they said.

They said the Hezbollah fighters were operating in the border area, monitoring the flow of weapons into Syria from Lebanon.

Hezbollah's website and TV station said the group held funerals this week for two fighters killed while performing "jihadi duties".

Hezbollah has given public support to its Damascus ally but has not confirmed a military presence in Syria – wary of inflaming sectarian tensions in Lebanon, where many Sunni Muslims support the anti-Assad rebels.

The mainly Sunni rebels are supported by Sunni powers including Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, and have attracted Islamist fighters from across the Middle East to their cause.

Mr Assad, from the Alawite minority which is an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam, is backed by Iran and Russia. Efforts to address the conflict at the United Nations have been blocked by a standoff in the Security Council between Western powers seeking a tough stance and Russia and China, which fear a resolution would be the first step towards military intervention.

l A mortar bomb fired from Syria landed in a residential district of the south-eastern Turkish town of Akcakale, killing a woman and four children from the same family and wounding at least eight other people.

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu phoned UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to brief him about the incident and also spoke with senior military officials and Syria crisis mediator Lakhdar Brahimi.