BEIRUT, Sept 2: An army assault on a rural area of the central Syrian province of Hama killed at least 21 people on Sunday, a monitoring group said.

“The number of victims of a military operation in the area of Al-Fan is likely to rise, because several people have been reported missing, while some of the wounded are in a critical condition,” said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The Observatory had no details available on whether those killed were civilians or rebel fighters. “But all 21 of the dead were men,” said the group's director Rami Abdel Rahman.

State news agency SANA said all of the dead were members of “an armed terrorist group that was attacking citizens and security forces”.

A clash with the army had “resulted in the killing of all the group members and the confiscation of their weapons,” it added.

Horrific images shot and posted on YouTube by activists in Al-Fan showed a long row of bodies shrouded in white cloths, laid out on the ground, with scores of men, women and children crying.—AFP