Beirut, Oct 17 (IANS/EFE): At least eight Islamist rebels died when a car bomb exploded near one of their bases in the northern Syrian province of Idleb, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported Friday.

The London-based NGO said that the attack took place Thursday near a barracks that belongs to the insurgents in the town of Mardabisa.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.

In a related development, the SOHR raised the death toll in raids launched by government forces Thursday against the town of Jisirin on the outskirts of Damascus to 20, including two women and two children.

The UN announced Thursday that the death toll in the Syrian conflict had reached 200,000 since it began in March 2011.

Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein, the new UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said that new statistics would be published shortly on the number of victims and predicted that the updated death toll "will be well over 200,000".