Damascus, April 8 (IANS): At least 10 Syrian soldiers were killed and many others wounded when a car bomb ripped through a military checkpoint overnight in the central province of Hama, a monitoring group reported on Wednesday.

The car bomb went off at a checkpoint in the Sahl el-Ghab area in the countryside of Hama, Xinhua news agency reported citing the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, adding that the blast took place after midnight.

The state news agency SANA also reported the blast, saying it left many "martyrs and injuries", without further elaboration.

Meanwhile, the observatory said the Syrian air force dropped crude barrel bombs after midnight on the towns of Sayad in the northern countryside of Hama, which, according to the observatory, has been witnessing ongoing aerial bombardment for months.

Hama, as any other province in Syria, has been a stage for ongoing battles between the government troops and an array of jihadi and rebel militants, mainly in the northern countryside, close to the northwestern city of Idlib, which fell to the Al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front two weeks ago.