Over 350 Fatalities in Southern Syria Amid Escalating Violence, Monitor Reports

More than 350 people have been killed since the weekend in violent clashes in Syria's southern Sweida province, a war monitor said Thursday, updating an earlier toll. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that since clashes erupted on Sunday, 79 Druze fighters were killed along with 55 civilians, 27 of them in "summary executions by members of the defence and interior ministries", while 189 defence and interior ministry personnel and 18 Bedouin fighters were also killed. Earlier, the monitor had said the death toll was 300.

The Observatory said the victims in Sweida included a media worker, identifying him as Hassan al-Zaabi. The Syrian journalists' union in a statement said Zaabi was shot dead by "outlaw gangs" in Sweida province "while performing his professional duties", without saying whom he worked for. The Britain-based monitor, which relies on a network of sources inside Syria, additionally reported 15 defence and interior ministry personnel killed in Israeli strikes in southern Syria.