Syria activists say family of 13 killed in Sunni village

(Reuters) - Forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad killed at least 13 members of a family in the Sunni Muslim village of Baida on Sunday, in what activists said was the second massacre there.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said four women and six children were among those killed in the village, which is in a coastal area of central Syria.
"A relative came to look for them today and found the men shot outside. The women and children's bodies were inside a room of the house and residents in the area said some of the bodies were burned," said Rami Abdelrahman, head of the Observatory.
In May, pro-Assad militias killed more than 50 residents of Baida and over 60 locals in the nearby town of Banias. In those killings, some bodies, many of them children, were found burned and mutilated.
Baida is part of a small pocket of Sunni Muslims in the Mediterranean province of Tartous, a stronghold for Assad's own minority Alawite sect.
The two-year-old uprising against four decades of Assad family rule has been led by Syria's Sunni majority. Sectarian clashes and alleged massacres have become increasingly common in a conflict that has killed more than 100,000 people.
The killings in Baida came a day after a rare eruption of clashes was reported in the area between Assad's forces and the rebels in the coastal enclave.
The British-based Observatory, which has a network of activists across Syria, said all the victims had been executed.
(Reporting by Erika Solomon, editing by Gareth Jones)

Islamist-Kurdish fighting spreads in rebel-held Syria

(Reuters) - The local commander of a Syrian rebel group affiliated to al Qaeda was freed on Sunday after being held by Kurdish forces in a power struggle between rival organizations fighting President Bashar al-Assad, activists said.
However, the pro-opposition activists gave conflicting reports of how the Islamist brigade commander in the Syrian town of Tel Abyad near the Turkish border had come to be free.
The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Islamist rebels had exchanged 300 Kurdish residents they had kidnapped for the local head of their group, the Islamic State of Iraq and Sham (ISIS). Other activist groups challenged this account, saying Islamist fighters had freed Abu Musaab by force, with no Kurdish hostages released.
Sporadic fighting over the past five days in towns near the frontier with Turkey has pitted Islamists trying to cement their control of rebel zones against Kurds trying to assert their autonomy in mostly Kurdish areas.
The trouble highlights how the two-year insurgency against 43 years of Assad family rule is spinning off into strife within his opponents' ranks, running the risk of creating regionalized conflicts that could also destabilize neighboring countries.
The factional fighting could also help Assad's forces, who have launched an offensive to retake territory.
BELT OF TERRITORY
Assad has been trying to secure a belt of territory from Damascus through Homs and up to his heartland on the Mediterranean coast and, with the help of the Lebanese guerrilla group Hezbollah, has won a string of victories in Homs province and near the capital.
On Sunday his forces ambushed and killed 49 rebels in the Damascus suburb of Adra, the Observatory said.
The town was once a critical point along the route used by rebels to bring weapons to the capital, but Assad's forces recaptured it a few months ago and have been working to cut off rebel territories in the area.
To the north, activists reported Turkish troops reinforcing their side of the frontier near Tel Abyad, but the army could not be reached for comment. Turkish forces exchanged fire with Syrian Kurdish fighters in another border region earlier in the week.
The Observatory said the alleged prisoner exchange was part of a ceasefire agreed after a day of fierce clashes in Tel Abyad, but other activists said there was no deal and reported that many Kurdish residents were being held by ISIS fighters.
The Observatory said the fighting in Tel Abyad started when the local ISIS brigade asked Kurdish Front forces, which have fought with the rebels against Assad, to pledge allegiance to Abu Musaab, which they refused to do.
Other activists said the clashes were an extension of fighting that broke out last week in other parts of the northern border zone.
Opposition activists also reported the killing of at least 13 members of a family in the Sunni Muslim village of Baida on Sunday, in what they described as a second sectarian massacre there.
FIGHTING NEAR THE COAST
The killings followed a rare eruption of fighting between Assad's forces and rebels in the coastal province of Tartous, an enclave of Assad's Alawite minority sect that has remained largely unscathed by the civil war.
Syria's marginalized Sunni majority has largely backed the insurrection while minorities such as the Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam, have largely supported Assad, himself an Alawite.
The Observatory said four women and six children were among those killed in Baida.
"A relative came to look for them today and found the men shot outside. The women's and children's bodies were inside a room of the house and residents in the area said some of the bodies were burned," said Rami Abdelrahman, head of the Observatory.
In May, pro-Assad militias killed more than 50 residents of Baida and over 60 in the nearby town of Banias. In those killings, some bodies, many of them children, were found burned and mutilated.
The anti-Assad revolt has evolved from its origins as a peaceful protest movement in March 2011 into a civil war that has killed over 100,000 people and turned markedly sectarian.
The ethnic Kurdish minority has been alternately battling both Assad's forces and the Islamist-dominated rebels. Kurds argue they support the revolt but rebels accuse them of making deals with the government in order to ensure their security and autonomy during the conflict.
The Kurdish people, scattered over the territories of Iran, Turkey, Iraq and Syria, are often described as the world's largest ethnic community without a state of their own.
(Additional reporting by Isabel Coles in Arbil and Jonathan Burch in Ankara; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

Fighting raged on Sunday near Aleppo international airport

Fighting raged on Sunday near Aleppo international airport and nearby air bases as the battle for Syria's second city entered its second year, a monitoring group said.
"Fierce clashes broke out at dawn near Aleppo international airport and Nairab air base," said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, also reporting fighting in the Suleiman Halabi district of the city, once Syria's commercial hub.
The Britain-based watchdog also reported overnight clashes at Kwayris military airport. The violence in Aleppo comes a year after a massive rebel advance into the  provincial capital. [AFP]

Syrian rebel fighters killed 12 members of a pro-regime People's Committees

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported that, Syrian rebel fighters killed 12 members of a pro-regime People's Committees clashes overnight in the central city of Homs, and troops responded by shelling them on Friday.
The rebel-held district is one of several regime forces have laid siege to for more than a year.
The Observatory, which relies on a network of activists, doctors and lawyers on the ground, said government troops were continuing to shell the neighbourhood on Friday.
In northeastern province of Hassakeh, clashes raged between Kurdish fighters and jihadists from the Al-Qaeda-affiliated Al-Nusra Front and Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.
SOHR said a Nusra fighter blew himself up near the headquarters of the Kurdish YPG brigade, which has in recent days pushed jihadist fighters out of the town of Ras al-Ain.
[AFP]

Seven Members of Syrian war reconciliation group killed

BEIRUT (AP) -- Pro-government gunmen killed seven members of a local Syrian reconciliation group near the central city of Homs, activists said Tuesday, as troops shot dead nine people including a child at a checkpoint in a suburb of the capital.

The latest killings coincide with an offensive by President Bashar Assad's troops in Damascus and its surrounding suburbs, as well as in the strategic province surrounding Homs.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the seven men, including two retired army officers, were Sunni Muslims working to convince gunmen to drop their weapons and return to normal life. They were killed Monday in the village of Hajar Abyad, where residents are known to be regime supporters, it said.

Assad's troops have captured several nearby rebel-held areas in recent weeks including the towns of Qusair and Talkalkh near the border with Lebanon. Late last month, they launched an attack to try to capture rebel-held areas of Homs, Syria's third largest city.

They have also made headway against fighter brigades on the edge of Damascus and eastern suburbs.

The uprising against Assad's rule began in March 2011 and has deteriorated into an insurgency with increasingly sectarian overtones. Rebels, who are overwhelmingly Sunni, have been assisted by foreign fighters, while government forces have been bolstered by guerrillas from the Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah.

The killing came three days after rebels attacked a nearby army checkpoint, killing seven people including members of the military. It was not immediately clear if Monday's killings were in retaliation for Friday's ambush.

A Syrian activist, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals, said the gunmen who attacked the checkpoint had already been cleared by the committee as they have surrendered their arms.

The Observatory said the dead included two retired army officers, a mosque preacher and a former mayor.

In the Damascus suburb of Qarah, troops shot dead nine people including a child at an army checkpoint in the area, the Observatory said.

It was not clear whether those killed were fighters or civilians. An amateur video showed seven dead men, some of them with beards, and a boy with a bloodied face. The dead appeared to have suffered bullet wounds, some to the head.

"These are Bashar's crimes during Ramadan," a man could be heard saying in the video referring to the Muslim holy month that began last week.

The Observatory also reported fighting in the town of Qahtaniyeh on the edge of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

Rami Abdul-Rahman, who heads the Observatory, said regime forces were attacking rebels in the town.

More than 93,000 have been killed and millions uprooted from their homes in the conflict.

By BASSEM MROUE
Associated Press

forcibly ejected 30 Syrians patients by lebanese hospital.

A Lebanese hospital has "forcibly"  ejected 30 Syrians patients wounded in violence in their country, an activist  said on Monday, while the hospital said they were discharged over unpaid bills.
"The Alameddin hospital in Minieh threw out 30 wounded Syrians from Qusayr"  on Sunday, Khaled Mustafa, director of an office helping refugees in northern
Lebanon, told AFP.
The hospital, in northern Lebanon, has hosted dozens of Syrians from the  town of Qusayr, a former rebel stronghold that fell to government troops last  month, prompting an exodus of residents.
"They were forcibly expelled and were insulted," Mustafa said, adding that  "80 percent of them were fitted with splints because of their serious  fractures."
"The splints were removed without any concern for their health."
"They wouldn't even let them take their personal belongings or their  x-rays," he added.
Mustafa said the patients - some of whom were observing the fasting month of Ramadan - were left to sit on a pavement for two hours before Red Cross ambulances arrived to take them to another hospital in the nearby city of Tripoli.

  AFP reports.

Tensions increase within Syria rebel ranks

Free Syrian Army and al-Qaeda-linked fighters clash at Aleppo checkpoint, days after commander was shot by rival group.
The Free Syrian Army (FSA) and al-Qaeda-linked fighters have clashed again, just days after a leader of the FSA was shot dead at a checkpoint after a row between fighters from the two groups.
Activists told Al Jazeera that the FSA and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) on Saturday fought for control of a strategic checkpoint in Aleppo city's Bustan al-Qasr district, a strategic gateway between rebel and government controlled territory.
Some members of the groups now fear that tensions will escalate, hampering rebel efforts to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad. Analysts say divisions between Syria's rebel groups are partly to blame for giving Assad's forces the chance to regain the upper hand in the conflict.
Leaders of the Western- and Arab-backed FSA told Al Jazeera that they did not consider the ISIL an enemy, but that they would defend themselves.
"They are welcome if they help us fight the regime," Colonel Abdel Rahman Suweis, a member of the FSA Supreme Military Council, said.
"But if they want to cause strife, impose a new understanding of religion and make Syria another Afghanistan, we will take the necessary measures."
While FSA units sometimes fight alongside groups with different ideologies, rivalries have increased and al-Qaeda-linked groups have been blamed for assassinations of commanders of moderate rebel units.
Families trapped in Qaboun.
Meanwhile, hundreds of families were trapped in a northeastern district of Qaboun in Damascus by government troops who fought fierce battles with rebel forces, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based anti-government rights group, reported.
"There is a siege because regime snipers are posted on the outskirts of Qaboun and this makes any attempt to leave difficult," the group said on Sunday.
"Violent clashes are underway between regime forces and rebels in Qaboun," in northeast Damascus where battles have raged for months as the army tries to boot out rebel forces, the Observatory said.
"The area has also been bombed by the army," added the watchdog, which relies on a network of activists, doctors and lawyers on the ground.

Source:    Al Jazeera and agencies

An air raid on Syria's UNESCO World Heritage site.

An air raid on Syria's famed Krak des Chevaliers castle, a UNESCO World Heritage site, has damaged one of the fortress's towers, footage shot by activists showed Saturday.
The footage shows a huge blast as a tower of the Crusader castle, which is built on a hill, appears to take a direct hit, throwing up large clouds of smoke and scattering debris in the air.
A separate video filmed inside the fortress purports to show some of the damage caused by the air strike, including a gaping hole in the ceiling and a pile of rubble below.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a watchdog group, could not confirm direct hits on the castle, but said there were reports of three air strikes in the area on Friday.
The raids came after rebels apparently using the Krak des Chevaliers as a base attacked an Alawite village called Qumayri, killing several people, Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman told the AFP.

Syrian opposition: 200 civilians trapped in mosque.

Syria's main Western-backed opposition has said that 200 civilians are trapped in a mosque in a suburb of the Syrian capital as fighting rages outside between rebels and forces loyal to President Bashar Assad.
The Syrian Coalition called on the United Nations in a statement on Sunday to send "a strong warning'' to Assad that he "must immediately release'' the civilians in the Damascus suburb of Qaboun.
It did not say if the 200 had sought refuge in the mosque or were already there praying when fighting began.
It warned that thousands of civilians in Qaboun could be "massacred'' by Assad's army, as armored vehicles and elite forces move into the neighborhood.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said clashes in Qaboun that began after midnight had caused casualties.
[Reuters]