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About 10 people killed in Syria: activists

10 November 2011 02:18 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Two key activists groups said about 10 people were killed Wednesday across Syria by security forces, five of whom were gunned down in the capital of Damascus, APA reports quoting Xinhua.

The London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and the Local Coordination Committees said four people were killed in a suburb of Damascus during the funeral procession of a man who was killed earlier Wednesday.

Three people were killed in Inkhel village in the southern province of Daraa, said the activists, adding that another two were killed in the unrest-torn Homs province in central Syria.

There has been no independent confirmation of the latest deaths.

Meanwhile, the official SANA news agency cited officials in Homs as saying that explosive experts dismantled on Wednesday two explosive devices that were set to go off at a park in Khalidiah neighborhood in Homs.

Seven army personnel, who had been killed in clashes with armed groups lately, were laid to rest Wednesday, SANA reported.

Citing an official in Idlib province, SANA said that a school teacher’s body was found on Wednesday. The man, named Mazen Hassoun, had been kidnapped by a militant group in Sarmin in northern Idlib province before the Eid al-Adha (Feast of Sacrifice) holiday, and was later killed.

Syrian Interior Minister Nidal Shaar stressed that the crimes committed by armed terrorist groups under claims of achieving just demands are not related to reform in any way, renewing calls on gunmen to turn themselves in and hand over their weapons in return for amnesty.

Syria has overtly charged that some countries are behind the unrest in the country and even fund what it called armed terrorist groups it blames for killing hundreds of policemen and military personnel across the country since the start of violence in mid- March.

Syria also says weapons have been smuggled into the country and reached the hands of those groups via neighboring countries.

At least 3,500 people have been killed since the unrest began, the United Nations said in a statement published Tuesday.