MOSCOW, January 15 (RIA Novosti) - Children were reported among other casualties after Syrian fighter jets delivered airstrikes on Monday on rebel strongholds near Damascus, Al Jazeera said citing human rights activists.

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said one of the airstrikes on the town of Moadamiyeh, to the southwest of Damascus, killed at least eight children and five women among other people.

“The children, all members of the same clan, were aged between six months and nine years old,” Al Jazeera quoted as saying Rami Abdelrahman, the head of the UK-based group.

The authorities denied the information saying it was a shell from rebel forces that hit a residential building causing an unspecified number of victims.

Syria has been engulfed in a bloody civil war between various opposition forces and government troops loyal to President Bashar al-Assad since March 2011.

According to UN estimates, over 60,000 people have been killed in Syria since the uprising.

Two weeks ago, President Assad proposed a plan to resolve the country’s crisis which includes a national reconciliation conference, the formation of a new government and an amnesty.

The Syrian opposition has rejected the peace initiative, calling it "empty rhetoric”.