Damascus, Sept 4 : At least 16 people died in violence across Syria today, activists and state media said, as the visiting Red Cross chief sought access to those detained in five months of anti-regime protests. Arab League chief Nabil al-Arabi, meanwhile, said Syria has agreed to host him for a visit which he would probably make this week.
In the latest bloodshed, six soldiers and three civilians were killed when an “armed group” opened fire on a bus in Maharda, central Syria, state news agency SANA reported.
“Nine people, among them an officer, were killed and 17 others wounded this morning in Maharda in an ambush by an armed group who opened fire on a bus carrying soldiers and labourers going to work,” it said.
SANA said a security patrol killed three of the assailants.
The Local Coordination Committees (LCC), which groups anti-regime activists on the ground, said security forces shot dead three people in the Khan Sheikhwan area of Idlib province in northwestern Syria.
The security forces encircled hospitals “to prevent the wounded from being brought in for treatment,” it charged. On Friday, SANA said gunmen in Khan Sheikhwan had kidnapped a corporal with Syria's internal security services, Wael Ali.
Omar Idlebi of the Syrian Revolution Coordination Committee, which organises protests, added a woman was shot dead in Maaret al-Numan in an operation to arrest her husband, who was wounded along with three other family members. AFP
