Twelve civilians from Syria's Alawite minority, to which President Bashar al-Assad belongs, have been killed by jihadist fighters in the central province of Homs, a Syrian NGO said Wednesday.
Syrian troops heavily shelled the northwestern protest city of Idlib early Saturday, in an apparent prelude to a ground assault just hours before the scheduled arrival of international peace envoy Kofi Annan, a watchdog and an activist said.
