11 Killed as Syrian Forces Intensify Crackdown in North
At least 11 people were killed Monday as Syrian forces pressed their crackdown on dissent, pounding rebel bastions mainly in the restive north which also left many hurt, monitors said.
"Two civilians and five rebels were killed by gunfire and shrapnel in an offensive launched this morning in the village of Hass," Idlib province, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Troops set ablaze the houses of residents who had fled and arrested dozens of people in the village, it added.
Two other Idlib villages, Deir Subol and Farkia, were also targeted by troops in an operation in which a 16-year-old boy was killed and three other people injured, the Observatory said.
The villages came under heavy gunfire, activist Nureddin Abdo told Agence France Presse, adding forces backed by tanks stormed the town of al-Maghara, also "raiding houses, burning some of them and arresting youths."
Also Monday, a civilian was killed in an explosion in the northern city of Aleppo, it said.
In Daraa, cradle of the uprising, forces carried out arrest raids in the town of Dael, where two houses were burnt and a third collapsed, said the Observatory and the Local Coordination Committees activist group.
In the same region, army deserters fired rocket-propelled grenades at checkpoints at Inkhel, killing two soldiers, while gunfire was heard in the Tafas village.
Heavy machinegun fire was heard in the Hamidiyeh and Souk al-Hashish neighborhoods of Homs city, one of the main targets of the regime's year-long crackdown, said the LCC.
A gun battle was fought between rebel fighters and government forces in the central city's Juret al-Shiyah district, said the Observatory.
According to U.N. estimates, more than 9,000 people have died in the regime's crackdown on an uprising that began in March last year, inspired by Arab Spring protests that toppled long-time dictators in Tunisia and Egypt.
AFP is unable to confirm the accuracy of the information and the tolls because of draconian restrictions placed on journalists by the Syrian authorities.
Source: Agence France Presse
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