SANA: ‘Terrorists’ Killed 8 Syrian Soldiers in Attacks

Eight Syrian soldiers, including an army officer, have been killed in separate attacks in the country's central province of Homs, the official SANA news agency reported Thursday.

"In an ambush Wednesday afternoon at (the town of) Talbisa, terrorists fired on a military bus killing one officer and two soldiers and wounding seven others," said a military official quoted by the agency.

At Al-Rastan further north, "a terrorist group fired on a military vehicle killing five soldiers," the official told SANA.

Human rights groups said President Bashar Assad's forces have killed more than 2,000 people since the uprising against his autocratic rule erupted in mid-March, touched off by the wave of revolutions sweeping the Arab world.

Assad has shrugged off international condemnation and calls for him to step down, insisting that armed gang and thugs are driving the violence, not true reform-seekers.

The crackdown has led to broad international condemnation and sanctions.

Despite the harsh words, the Syrian crackdown continued.

Tanks stormed the eastern city of Deir el-Zour and made sweeping arrests there Wednesday, according to Syrian activists. Deir el-Zour is an oil-rich but impoverished region known for its well-armed clans and tribes whose ties extend across eastern Syria and into Iraq.

Security forces killed seven people, including a woman who died under torture, and arrested more than 150 others over the past 24 hours in a Damascus suburb, activists said Wednesday.