66 Civilians among 90 Killed across Syria
Ninety people including 66 civilians were killed across Syria on Tuesday, the day the government was expected to pull its forces from protest hubs under a U.N.-Arab League peace plan, monitors said.
The Local Coordination Committees, the main activist group spurring protests on the ground, said security forces killed 30 people in Homs, nine in Idlib, 22 in Hama, five in Daraa, two in Aleppo, one in the Damascus suburb of Harasta and one in Deir al-Zour.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said among the dead were 19 members of the regime's security forces and five rebels killed in fighting in several provinces.
Six civilians were killed in bombardment of the Khaldiyeh district of Homs city in the center of the country, and a seventh was shot dead in the Bab Tadmur neighborhood, said the Observatory.
In Hama province, also in central Syria, seven civilians were killed in Kfar Zeita, the scene of fierce clashes with rebels and aerial bombardment on Monday, the Britain-based monitoring group said.
Another four civilians were reported killed in Daraa province in the south, and a child was killed at Harasta near the capital, the Observatory said.
In Deir al-Zour, a civilian was killed by gunfire, while eight others were killed in the region of Aleppo, it said. Five rebels were also reported killed in Daraa, Homs, Hama and Aleppo.
In addition, 11 soldiers were killed in the northeast region of Hassakeh, five in Aleppo province and three near the Turkish border, according to the Observatory.
The latest violence came as government forces were to have withdrawn from protest hubs under the peace plan drawn up by U.N.-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan.
The regime of President Bashar al-Assad has been cracking down on dissent since mid-March 2011 in violence the Observatory says has killed more than 10,000 people.
Source: Agence France Presse
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