Suicide bomber kills 4 in Assad clan’s hometown

A suicide bomber driving an ambulance killed four people on Sunday in an unprecedented attack on a hospital that took Syria’s civil war to the ruling Assad clan’s hometown for the first time, a monitoring group said. The attack came as the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that troops had executed 48 people earlier this week in a northern village, among them 10 children.

A man drove an ambulance packed with explosives into the parking of the Qardaha hospital. Another man was in the vehicle with him, but it was unclear whether he was an accomplice or a hostage. Four people were killed in the attack.

Abdel Rahman, Director at the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights

Meanwhile, the Observatory said 10 children and 13 rebels were among 48 people executed by government forces in the northern village of Rityan earlier this week. The killings took place after troops entered the town Tuesday, during an offensive aimed at cutting rebel supply lines to the Turkish border. The brief seizure of Rityan was part of an abortive army offensive this week to encircle the rebel-held east of Aleppo and relieve two besieged Shiite villages to its north. By Friday all but one of the villages taken by government forces had been recaptured by the rebels, who include fighters from Al-Qaeda affiliate Al-Nusra Front. The heavy fighting claimed the lives of 129 loyalists and 116 rebels, including an Al-Nusra commander, according to an Observatory toll.

There was no resistance except in one house where a rebel opened fire at troops before being executed along with his family.

Abdel Rahman

Middle East Syria rebels