Among the dead were 35 people killed in al-Fan, a village in Hama province, according to the Local Coordination Committees, an opposition group. An activist named Thair al- Hamawi told Al-Jazeera television that many of the victims were killed “execution-style” or with knives, after Syrian government forces shelled the settlement of 30,000 people for an hour. The state-owned Syrian Arab News Agency said those killed were “terrorists.”
Earlier yesterday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said government forces had killed 27 people, while 12 soldiers died in the fighting. More than 23,000 people have died since the uprising against Assad began in March 2011, according to the U.K. based observatory.
Two explosive devices also rocked an area near a government military unit in Damascus, the Syrian Arab News Agency reported on its website, without saying where it got the information. Al Arabiya television, citing a rebel group, said the bombing targeted the Syrian army’s command. The Syrian Arab News Agency said four people were wounded, while the rebels said 17 people were killed.
Damascus Bomb
Syrian forces have struggled to maintain security in the capital after rebels pushed into neighborhoods in July. A bomb attack in Damascus that month killed key members of Assad’s military establishment, including his brother-in-law, Major General Assef Shawkat, and Defense Minister Dawoud Rajhah.
The rebels have lately turned their attacks against airbases as they try to reduce the strength of the government’s air power being deployed against them.
Fighting continued yesterday around the perimeter of the Abu Zhuhoor military airport in the northern province of Idlib, the observatory said in an e-mail. The Syrian Free Army controls about 60 percent of the Abu Zhuhoor military airport in the northern province of Idlib, Al-Jazeera television said today citing activists.
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