(Reuters) -

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's forces ambushed rebels in a strategic suburb near the capital Damascus on Sunday, killing at least 49 people, a pro-opposition monitoring group said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the opposition fighters had been killed near Adra, a town that rebels have been fighting to recapture from Assad's forces. It lies on a route that the rebels had been using to smuggle weapons into Damascus until the army captured it a few months ago.

(Reporting by Erika Solomon; Editing by Kevin Liffey)