(THE TELEGRAPH) DAMASCUS – The victims, all of them factory workers, were taken off a bus in the western village of Qusair and robbed before being killed. Video footage released by Mr Assad’s opponents shows 13 disfigured bodies. Some of the victims appeared to have been shot in the head or stomach at close range.
The latest bloodshed followings the deaths of at least 108 people, 49 of whom were children, in the massacre in Houla last Friday. The opposition blamed both incidents on the “al-Shabiha”, a pro-regime militia recruited exclusively from Mr Assad’s Alawite sect.