28 soldiers among 39 dead in Syria: rights group

BEIRUT: Twenty-eight soldiers and a Shiite Muslim cleric were among 39 people killed in violence across Syria on Wednesday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

At least 20 troops were killed in fierce clashes with rebel fighters in the northwestern province of Latakia, the Britain-based watchdog said. Five rebels were also killed in the clashes that began late Tuesday and continued through dawn on Wednesday in a region known as the Kurdish Mountain near the border with Turkey.

"The majority died in direct fighting with the rebels, while other soldiers were killed in a rebel attack on two buildings, which the army was using to launch mortar attacks against the Kurdish Mountain," Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP.

Dozens of soldiers were also wounded, Abdel Rahman said. "A number of soldiers, including an officer, were captured by the rebels, who also took their weapons," he added.

In Idlib, another northwestern province that borders Turkey, five government troops were killed when a car bomb exploded at their checkpoint overnight. Explosions and shooting were also heard in the town of Maaret al-Numan, the Observatory said.

In the central province of Hama, clashes in the town of Kernaz left three soldiers dead. Shelling by government troops also killed a man and his wife.

"Unidentified gunmen assassinated a Shiite cleric in Sayyida Zeinab," the Observatory said, referring to an area of south Damascus that houses a revered Shiite shrine of the same name and is home to many Iraqi refugees. The shrine, which is visited by hundreds of thousands of pilgrims each year, mainly from Syria's ally Iran, was the site of a suicide bombing on June 14 that wounded 14 people and damaged the mosque. Nearer the city centre, clashes broke out between rebel fighters and government forces in the Tadamon neighbourhood, the Observatory said.

Northeast of the capital, troops shot a civilian dead at a checkpoint in Harasta, while a rebel officer died of wounds sustained in an earlier attack in the town. In the eastern city of Deir Ezzor, sniper fire killed a civilian in the Al-Qasur neighbourhood, the watchdog said.

More than 14,400 people, most of them civilians, have been killed since the revolt against the rule of President Bashar al-Assad erupted in March 2011, according to the Observatory's figures.