Eight Syrian soldiers, including an army officer, have been killed in separate attacks in the country's central province of Homs, the official SANA news agency reported Thursday.

"In an ambush Wednesday afternoon at (the town of) Talbisa, terrorists fired on a military bus killing one officer and two soldiers and wounding seven others," said a military official quoted by the agency.

At Al-Rastan further north, "a terrorist group fired on a military vehicle killing five soldiers," the official told SANA.

The Syrian government has never said how many members of its security forces have been killed in the regime's crackdown on protests that began in March, but activists and human rights groups say about 400 have died.

More than 2,200 people, mostly civilians, have been killed since the beginning of the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad's regime, the United Nations says.

Activists said on Wednesday that Syrian security forces had killed seven people, including a woman who died under torture, and arrested more than 150 others over a 24-hour period in a Damascus suburb.