8 Dead as Syrian Forces Raid Hama, Homs, Idlib

Syrian troops and security forces on Monday launched an assault on the central cities of Hama and Homs, where they shot dead six people, activists said, while at least two were reported killed near the Turkish border.

"More than 30 military vehicles and security forces raided Hama this morning and heavy gunfire was heard in the city," Omar Idlibi, spokesman of the Local Coordination Committees (LCC), told Agence France Presse by telephone.

In Homs two people were killed in the al-Khalidiyeh district and a third in al-Bayyada, while a fourth person was shot dead at Tell Kalakh in the Homs region, Idlibi said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights for its part said a man and his son were shot dead in the Bustan al-Diwan quarter of Homs as they rode on a motor scooter.

The Observatory said 80 people were arrested in al-Khalidiyeh, where reinforcements were sent from Hama with four armored vehicles and seven trucks.

The LCC spokesman also said that in Idlib region in the northwest a sniper killed a man who was trying to cross the border into Turkey.

A Turkish local source in touch with the Syrian community on the other side of the frontier said two people were killed and five wounded in an assault by Syrian troops on the village of Ain al-Beida.

The governor's office in the southern Turkish province of Hatay sent ambulances to the border to pick up wounded people from the incident, Turkish NTV television said, without specifying the number of injured.

Also in Idlib, the LCC said the village of As-Sabil was surrounded and arrests were made.

Near Jabal al-Zawiya in the northwest a grave containing seven bodies was found by locals, who were prevented by the army from retrieving them.

More than 2,200 people have been killed in Syria since almost daily mass protests began on March 15, according to the United Nations, while human rights groups say more than 10,000 people are behind bars.

President Bashar al-Assad's regime says it is fighting "armed terrorist gangs."