Syria: At Least 18 Killed In Violence
Continued violence in Syria left at least 18 people dead on Saturday, most of them died in a clash between security forces and military defectors in a northwestern city, activists said. The London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights conveyed the pre-dawn clashes in the city of Idlib killed seven government troops and policemen, as well as five anti-government army defectors and three civilians.
Security forces also killed a civilian in the southern province of Daraa and two others in the central region of Homs, the activist group said.
November was the deadliest month of the uprising against Bashar Assad’s regime, with at least 950 people killed.
In the west of the country, Syrian troops detained at least 27 people in the village of Talkalakh on the border with Lebanon. The country’s state-run news agency SANA confirmed the arrests in Talkalakh, saying that those detained were “terrorists” involved in smuggling weapons, drugs, and infiltrating fighters from Lebanon.
