Naharnet

27 Civilians Dead in Syria as Bus Attack Kills At Least 6

Syrian security forces shot dead 27 people on Sunday across the country, most of them in the central opposition bastion Homs and the northwestern province of Idlib, the Local Coordination Committees, the main activist group spurring protests on the ground, said.

The LCC said the ten in Idlib were killed "when pro-regime forces targeted their bus," but the state-run SANA news agency reported that a roadside blast in Idlib killed six workers and injured 16, blaming the attack on an "armed terrorist group."

"Six workers were killed and 16 others injured by a blast set off by an armed terrorist group on a road in Idlib, which exploded as a minibus passed by," SANA reported.

The attack happened on the side of the road linking Ariha and al-Mastouma in Idlib, near the Turkish border, according to SANA.

The agency reported that security services dismantled two other explosive devices on a road in Jabal al-Zawiya, also in Idlib.

For its part, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said in a statement that five people were killed in the roadside blast near Ariha, but made no comment as to the identity of the attackers.

The Britain-based Observatory also said a civilian was killed by gunfire at a checkpoint in the flashpoint city of Homs.

And the LCC said security forces shot dead 12 people in Homs, two in the southern province of Dara, two in the Damascus suburb of al-Muadhamiya and a man in the northeastern province of al-Hasakeh.

Meanwhile protests continued on Sunday, with 10,000 people marching in the town of Zabadani, in Damascus province, where an Arab observer team has been deployed, calling for regime change, according to the Observatory.

And several thousand people demonstrated in the Idlib town of Maaret al-Numan, calling for regime change and the trial of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad when they met the observer team there.

Source: Agence France Presse, Naharnet


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