At least 19 killed across Syria: NGO

Nine were killed, 100 wounded in a powerful blast in the largest city of eastern Syria.


Afp May 19, 2012

BEIRUT: At least 19 people were killed in violence across Syria on Saturday, monitors said, including nine who died in what state television said was as a suicide bombing in Deir Ezzor.

The powerful blast in the largest city of eastern Syria killed nine people and wounded 100, the television said.

It blamed a "suicide terrorist bomber" for the attack, while the main opposition coalition, the Syrian National Council, said President Bashar al-Assad's regime was responsible as in past such bombings.

In northern Syria, "unidentified gunmen" killed a woman and her two children in the Al-Hamdaniya district of Aleppo, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

It said gunmen in the Deir Ezzor region assassinated the brother of an official in Assad's ruling Baath party.

Regime forces in the restive town of Khan Shaykhoun in the northwestern province of Idlib shot dead a civilian, said the Britain-based watchdog.

Also in Idlib, which borders Turkey, two defectors were killed in Jisr al-Shughur, according to the Observatory.

Three civilians were killed in the central province of Homs, one in the outskirts of Qusayr and two others in the city of Homs itself, one of them by a stray bullet and the other by a sniper, the watchdog said.

What started out as a popular uprising has over time developed into an increasingly militarised revolt after Assad's regime used force to crack down on peaceful protesters across the country.

According to the Observatory, more than 12,000 people have been killed in Syria since the revolt broke out in March 2011, most of them civilians.

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