BEIRUT: A car bomb on the outskirts of the Sayeda Zeinab district south of Damascus killed at least six people on Monday, a monitoring group said, the third bombing attack in the area this year.

Lebanese group Hezbollah´s Al Manar television reported the blast had occurred at a Syrian army checkpoint.

It put the death toll at eight.

The Syrian government´s chief negotiator at Geneva talks said the blast struck a hospital.

The death toll was expected to rise because of the number of people with serious injuries, the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Multiple explosions in February killed scores of people in the Sayeda Zeinab area, home to Syria´s holiest Shi´ite Muslim shrine, in one of the bloodiest attacks there in Syria´s five-year conflict.

A suicide attack there less than a month earlier claimed by ultra-hardline Sunni Muslim group Islamic State killed 70 people.

Syrian government negotiator Bashar Ja´afari said Monday´s blast "that four terrorists carried out" hit a hospital, killing some patients evacuated last week from two rebel-besieged towns in the northwestern province of Idlib.

He said 10 people were killed.