Unknown gunmen abducted and killed nine policemen Monday in southern Daraa province in a rare such attack on a government building in the defeated cradle of the nine-year uprising, a monitor said.
The killings, for which there were no immediate claim of responsibility, occurred in the own of Muzayrib, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
"Unknown assailants attacked the municipality building... abducting nine members of the security forces before shooting them dead and abandoning their bodies in a square," Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman said.
Attacks are common in the province, which was retaken by regime forces from rebels in 2018, usually targeting loyalists and civilians working for the state, according to the Observatory.
But the nature of Monday's incident and high toll are unusual.
After its recapture by Russia-backed regime fighters in 2018, state institutions returned but the army is still not deployed in the whole province, says the Observatory.
Hunting of regime officers and its intelligence agents has mounted in the past few weeks, setting the regime's alarm as the two-year-old reconciliation deal in Daraa is coming without fruit.
Damascus has failed in southern Syria as its notorious security services continue arrests campaigns and keep tracking former rebel fighters who laid down their weapons, seeking to start a new post-war life.
Feeling insecure, has pushed dozen of former rebels to carry weapons again, according to analysts.
Daraa is considered to be the birthplace of the popular uprising that erupted across Syria in 2011, before spiraling into a full-blown conflict.
Last March, rare clashes erupted in the western countryside of Daraa but regime's massive power had smashed the rebellion when dozen of tanks were stationed in the town of Sanamayn. Since then a severe siege has been imposed on the town.
Russia, the de-facto ruler of Syria, tried to engulf the tension by freeing detainees and providing promises that most of have not come true until now, activists say.
More than 140,000 regime troops have been killed in nine years but opposition figures say the number is more.
In its turn, the regime bombing has killed about 400,000 people according to the UN and Britain-based monitoring groups. Also opposition rights groups say the number is more.
The civil war has killed more than 380,000 people and displaced millions from their homes since starting with the brutal repression of government protests.
Zaman Al Wasl with AFP
Comments About This Article
Please fill the fields below.