NICOSIA: Six civilians, including one woman, were shot dead in Syria on Wednesday as the ruling regime continued its brutal crackdown on a seven-month popular protest, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
Four of the victims were killed in the central flashpoint Homs district by gunfire of the "shabiha," armed civilian defenders of the regime of Bashar Al-Assad, the Britain-based rights watchdog said.
Two others, including a woman, were killed in clashes between the army and gunmen suspected to be army deserters in Qusayr, a village in the district of Homs that falls near the Lebanese border, the rights group said.
The Observatory also reported that a seventh civilian, who had been wounded on Tuesday on the outskirts of the capital Damascus, died early Wednesday.
Activists had said security forces on Tuesday shot dead four people in Qusayr and in the southern province of Daraa, cradle of the anti-regime protests that erupted in mid-March.
The United Nations estimates more than 3,000 people, including 187 children, have been killed in a fierce crackdown on dissent in Syria.
