36 Civilians, 28 Troops Killed in Fresh Syria Violence

Syrian security forces killed 36 people across the country on Sunday, most of them in the central protest hub of Homs, activists said, after nine regime troops were killed overnight at the hands of rebels according to a rights group.

The Local Coordination Committees, the main activist group spurring protests on the ground, said security forces killed 22 people in Homs, six in the flashpoint northwestern province of Idlib, five in the restive countryside around Damascus, two in the southern province of Daraa and one in the northern province of Aleppo.

Among the dead were five children and two women, the LCC said.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, meanwhile, said 14 regime troops were killed in Idlib, seven in Homs, four in Daraa and three in Zabadani near Damascus.

It reported earlier on Sunday that nine Syrian soldiers died and 21 were wounded in clashes overnight with armed rebels in Idlib.

The Observatory said Idlib's army casualties occurred in three separate clashes at Jebel al-Zawiya, which borders Turkey.

The Turkey-based Free Syrian Army, which comprises army deserters and armed volunteers, regularly attacks the security forces in a bid to halt their brutal crackdown on dissent which rights groups say has killed more than 6,000 people since mid-March.

Intense gunfire rang out overnight at the Syria-Turkey frontier as Damascus moved to root out the opposition in a Syrian border village, a local source said Sunday.

According to a Turk living in a border village in southern Turkey's Hatay province, machinegun fire rattled late into Saturday night in the regime-led operation against the opposition in the Ain al-Beida village.

"We were very scared, the shots damaged our satellite dishes," said the source who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Turkish television station NTV quoted other villagers saying that another Syrian village, Khirbet al-Joz, had also been targeted by Syrian forces.

According to press agency Anatolie, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has telephoned the governor of Hatay to obtain details about the situation on the ground.

Some 7,500 Syrians have fled violent repression to Turkey since anti-government protests began in March. Most are living in camps in Hatay.

Once a close ally of Syria, Turkey has since been at the forefront of international criticism over the Damascus regime's crackdown on protests.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has also urged his once close friend, President Bashar al-Assad, to quit.