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Two killed in fresh army raid in Syria
Syrian troops on Thursday pursued an offensive in a region where activists reported the deadliest assault in a nine-month-old crackdown on unrest, as the vanguard of an Arab League team set to monitor compliance with a peace plan headed for Damascus.
Syrian troops on Thursday pursued an offensive in a region where activists reported the deadliest assault in a nine-month-old crackdown on unrest, as the vanguard of an Arab League team set to monitor compliance with a peace plan headed for Damascus.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said two people were killed in gunfire during a raid on a village by the army and security forces on Thursday, while soldiers backed by tanks and armoured troop carriers swept into the town of Khan Sheikhoun.
Two days earlier Syrian forces had killed 111 civilians and activists in the northwestern province of Idlib bordering Turkey, the British-based Observatory said, an attack that France condemned as an “unprecedented massacre”.
Thursday’s violence shortly before the expected arrival in Damascus of Arab League officials to prepare for a monitoring mission tasked with ensuring Assad makes good on his commitment to a League plan to end the bloodshed.
