Assad forces execute 85

AMMAN: Syrian forces and militiamen loyal to President Bashar Assad killed at least 85 people when they stormed a Damascus suburb after five days of fighting, opposition activists in the area said.
Syria’s Sana state news agency said the military “inflicted big losses on terrorists in Jdeidet Al-Fadel and destroyed weapons and ammunition and killed and wounded members of the terrorist groups”.
Jamal Al-Golani, a member of the Revolution Leadership Council opposition group, said the number of dead may be higher than 250, mostly shot at close range, but the presence of army patrols made documenting all of them difficult.
“Jdeidet Al-Fadel was militarily a lost cause from day one because it was surrounded by the army from every direction. There are almost no wounded because they were shot on the spot,” he said.
The killings happened over several days when pro-Assad forces stormed an area where there were up to 270 fighters, Golani said, adding that he had counted 98 bodies in the streets and 86 people who he said had been summarily executed in makeshift clinics where they were lying wounded.
The working class district, part of Sunni Muslim towns surrounding the capital that have been at the forefront of the uprising against Assad, is situated near hilltop bases for elite loyalist forces, who mostly belong to Assad’s minority Alawite sect that has dominated the country since the 1960s.
Abu Ahmad Al-Rabi’, an activist in the adjacent district of Jdeidet Artouz, said: “We documented 85 summarily executed, including 28 shot in a makeshift hospital after Assad’s forces entered Jdeidet Al-Fadel. We fear that the victims of the massacre are much higher.”