32 Dead across Syria as Blast Kills 8 in Idlib

At least 32 people were killed in Syria on Tuesday, including four army deserters, as a blast killed eight civilians in the northwestern province of Idlib, activists and a human rights group said.

"Eight civilians were killed by a device that exploded as their minibus passed on the road between Idlib and Aleppo," in the north, said the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, without specifying the identity of the assailants.

In the same province, an activist was killed by a sharp shooter, while at a shop in the town of Khan Sheikhoun, the Observatory said.

And in Homs, a flashpoint of the protest movement against President Bashar al-Assad's regime, troops traveling in armored vehicles in Al-Qahira Street "opened fire arbitrarily, killing a civilian and wounding nine others," it added.

Meanwhile, the Local Coordination Committees, the main activist group spurring protests on the ground, said security forces killed 28 civilians and four army defectors.

Nineteen people were killed in the central opposition bastion Homs, eight in Idlib province, two in the Damascus suburbs of Qatana and Madaya, one in the southern province of Daraa and two in the flashpoint central province of Hama.

In Aleppo, Syria's second largest city, they raided the university campus after a rally organized the previous night by students, shattering furniture and arresting some of the protesters.

Assad's regime is facing increased external and internal pressure with U.N. Chief Ban Ki-moon prodding the Security Council to take action on the Syrian crisis and military and political foes organizing their work more closely.

The regime has waged a fierce crackdown on dissent since protests erupted in March, dispatching troops and militias to protest hotbeds in a bid to silence the opposition.

More than 5,000 have been killed since the start of the unrest, the United Nations said in December.