DAMASCUS, Syria
(AP) -- Gunmen shot dead 11 people, mostly Christians, near a town in
central Syria on Saturday, state media and activists said, an attack
described by a local resident as aimed at members of the religious
minority.
The resident, citing eyewitnesses,
told The Associated Press that the gunmen randomly opened fire on
roadside restaurants in a drive-by shooting outside Ein al-Ajouz as
Christians were celebrating a feast day. He spoke on condition of
anonymity for fear of reprisals.
The state-run SANA news agency described the attack as a "massacre" and said women and children were among the dead.
Activists however said that many of those killed were pro-government militiamen manning checkpoints.
The
Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that nine of
those killed were Christians. It said rebels seeking to overthrow
President Bashar Assad attacked checkpoints manned by the pro-government
National Defense Forces militia, killing five of them. It said the
other six were civilians, including two women.
A
Facebook page run by pro-government activists in the area said a
checkpoint was targeted and six civilians and five pro-government
militiamen were killed. It posted portraits of five "martyrs" from the
militia wearing military fatigues, saying the attackers came from the
nearby rebel-held town of al-Hosn where extremist rebel groups are known
to operate.
Christians, who make up about 10
percent of Syria's population, say they are particularly vulnerable to
the violence sweeping the country of 22 million people.
Many
rebels, who are mostly Sunni Muslims, consider Christians to be
supporters of Assad's regime. The regime is dominated by members of
Assad's minority Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam, and members
of some other religious minorities consider it a bulwark against
extremists among the country's Sunni majority.
SANA
said the attack occurred after midnight Saturday on a road in Homs
province linking Ein al-Ajouz with another Christian village, Nasrah.
Eleya
Dhaher, archbishop of the Wadi al-Nasarra region that includes the
villages where the attack occurred, said 15 people were killed in the
"massacre." "It seems that tension and the sectarian rift have reached a
level where no area can enjoy peace," he said by telephone.
Wadi
al-Nasarra, or Valley of the Christians, has been a relatively safe
area compared to other parts of Syria, and many Christians have fled
there from violence elsewhere in the country.
Dhaher
denied claims that the recent attacks on the areas aim to empty them
from Christians, adding that sectarian rifts have "reached every spot of
the homeland."
The resident who spoke to the
AP said some of the dead were refugees from the central city of Homs,
which has witnessed heavy clashes over the past two years. Tens of
thousands of Christians left downtown districts in Syria's third largest
city because of the fighting.
Attacks against
Christians have not been uncommon in Syria since the country's crisis
began more than two years ago. Two bishops were abducted in rebel-held
areas in April and an Italian Jesuit priest, Father Paolo Dall'Oglio,
went missing last month while on a trip to the rebel-held northeastern
city of Raqqa. On Monday, a bomb explosion killed an eight-year old
Christian girl in Homs province.
Also
Saturday, a bomb exploded near a Kurdish Red Crescent ambulance in the
northeastern province of Hassakeh, killing two paramedics and wounding
another, the Observatory said.
Hassakeh, which
borders Turkey has been witnessing almost daily clashes between Kurdish
gunmen and members of al-Qaida-linked groups such as Jabhat al-Nusra or
Nusra Front over the past months that left scores of people dead.
The Observatory said Friday's clashes in Hassakeh left four Kurdish gunmen and 11 jihadis dead.
Kurds,
the largest ethnic minority in Syria, make up more than 10 percent of
the country's population, and have seen their loyalties split in the
conflict between pro- and anti-Assad groups.
On
Friday, the U.N. refugee agency said an unusually large wave of Syrian
families has been pouring into Iraq's Kurdistan region this week.
Unrest
in Syria began in March 2011 and later exploded into a civil war. More
than 100,000 people have been killed in the conflict.
---
Bassem Mroue reported from Beirut.
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