Syrian TV Says Insurgents Killed Civilians After Capturing Town
Syrian television said on Sunday that Islamist insurgents who seized a key northwestern town had since slaughtered civilians, but monitors of the war said only government supporters had been detained and no one killed.
Rebels including al-Qaeda’s Syria wing captured Jisr al-Shughour for the first time in the four-year conflict on Saturday, edging closer to Latakia, the coastal province of vital importance to President Bashar al-Assad.
“Terrorist groups committed a horrific massacre of civilians after entering Jisr al-Shughour,” state television quoted a military source as saying. It said at least 30 civilians had been killed in the town close to the Turkish border.
But the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the grinding civil war, said combatants had detained government backers and that there was no confirmation so far they had killed anyone.
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