Syrian forces kill at least 49 rebels - monitors

Pro-opposition group claims Assad troops behind ambush on suburb of Damascus

A picture of Syria’s president Bashar al-Assad among rubble in Aleppo’s Karm al-Jabal neighbourhood yesterday. Photograph: Muzaffar Salman/Reuters
A picture of Syria’s president Bashar al-Assad among rubble in Aleppo’s Karm al-Jabal neighbourhood yesterday. Photograph: Muzaffar Salman/Reuters

Syrian president Bashar al-Assad’s forces ambushed rebels in a strategic suburb near the capital Damascus yesterday, killing at least 49 people, a pro-opposition monitoring group said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the opposition fighters had been killed near Adra, a town that rebels have been fighting to recapture from Assad’s forces. It lies on a route that the rebels had been using to smuggle weapons into Damascus until the army captured it a few months ago.

Reuters