Bloody assault on village, blasts hit Syria capital
Tags:
Regime troops killed at least 21 people in a blistering assault on a central village on Sunday, a watchdog said, while twin blasts rocked Damascus and Syria's second city Aleppo was hit by air strikes.
As the violence raged, new international peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi said change in Syria was 'unavoidable', although he carefully refrained from calling for Assad to step down, as his predecessor Kofi Annan had.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said it expected the death toll to mount from the army offensive on Al-Fan village in Hama province, one of the main arenas of conflict in the more than 17-month uprising against President Bashar al-Assad.
The Britain-based watchdog had no details on whether those killed were civilians or rebel fighters, 'but all 21 of the dead were men', said its director Rami Abdel Rahman.
Horrific images shot and posted on YouTube by activists in Al-Fan showed a long row of bodies shrouded in white cloths, laid out on the ground surrounded by scores of weeping men, women and children.
State news agency SANA said all of those killed during the Al-Fan clashes were from 'an armed terrorist group that was attacking citizens and security forces'.
In Damascus, twin bombs exploded near a tightly guarded government compound in the heart of the city, wounding four people, state television said.
The bombings struck in Abu Remmaneh district where security buildings and the office of Vice President Faruq al-Shara are located, the television said, blaming 'terrorists'.
They were among at least 168 people killed on Saturday - 110 civilians, 32 soldiers and 26 rebels, the Observatory said. The watchdog gave a preliminary toll of 66 people killed on Sunday - 51 civilians, 12 soldiers and three rebels.
'August bloodiest month of Syria uprising'
August marked the bloodiest month in Syria since the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad's regime erupted in March last year, with at least 5,440 people killed, a watchdog said on Sunday.
Last week alone accounted for 1,248 deaths, according to figures compiled by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which has a network of activists on the ground in Syria.
The Britain-based watchdog said the August figure comprised 4,114 civilians, 105 rebel fighters and 1,221 regime troops. The group includes in its civilian toll those who have taken up arms against Assad's forces.
According to the Observatory, at least 26,283 people have been killed in Syria since the revolt began in March last year - 18,695 civilians, 1,079 defectors and 6,509 troops.
Post new comment