by Our Foreign Desk

REBEL forces shelled the Syrian capital Damascus yesterday, killing at least four people hours before a visit by Iran’s foreign minister.

The attack, apparently timed to coincide with the visit, began during the morning rush hour.

More than 50 shells struck the city, including in the affluent neighbourhoods of Abu Rummaneh, Baramkeh and Qasaa.

Dozens were injured.

The Syrian Air Force responded with air strikes on rebel positions in the suburbs of Hamouriyeh, Saqba, Kfar Batna, Douma and Arbeen.

Rebel group the Local Co-ordination Committees claimed that 31 people had been killed and 120 injured in the raids.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif arrived in the afternoon for talks with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

The two were expected to discuss a four-point Iranian proposal for peace in the war-torn country, which reportedly includes forming a “national unity government.”

Mr Zarif cancelled a trip to Turkey on Tuesday to discuss the Syrian civil war, while Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov hosted his Saudi counterpart Adel al-Jubeir in Moscow for similar discussions.

The Western-backed war to overthrow the Syrian government has killed more than 250,000 people and displaced 4 million, contributing to the refugee crisis in southern Europe.

Earlier yesterday, Mr Zarif flew to Lebanon, where he met Foreign Minister Gibran Bassil and Hezbollah secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah.

Mr Zarif did not mention the Syrian war on his visit to Beirut, but he said that there was “a new opportunity” for all the countries in the region to co-operate against “two regional enemies — the Zionist entity and extremism, terrorism and sectarianism.”

Hezbollah militias have been fighting alongside Syrian government troops against various rebel factions in the mountainous border region between the two countries.

But yesterday a 48-hour ceasefire began in Zabadani and the villages of Foua and Kfarya in northern Idlib province.

Hezbollah and Syrian troops had been trying to take remaining parts of Zabadani from a coalition of groups for more than a month when the rebels retaliated by attacking the remote villages.