Revenge attack for Syrian chemical weapons deaths kills 22 Alawites

Groups with links to Al Qaeda have launched an 'Eye for an Eye' campaign to take revenge for a chemical weapons attack that killed hundreds in Damascus.

BEIRUT // The death toll from a massacre in an Alawite village in central Syria has risen to 22, including women, children and elderly men, a rights-monitoring group said yesterday.
The minority Alawite sect, to which the president, Bashar Al Assad, and most of Syria's elite belong, is an offshoot of Shiite Islam whose members have increasingly been targeted by extremist fighters among the Sunni-dominated opposition in the revolt against the regime.
Fighters from Al Nusra Front, an Al Qaeda affiliate, shot dead 16 Alawites and six Arab Bedouins on Tuesday after storming the village of Maksar Al Hesan, east of the city of Homs, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which is opposed to the regime.
The British-based observatory said the victims included seven women, three men over the age of 65, and four children under the age of 16, citing residents and medics.
Rami Abdel Rahman, the head of the observatory, said the victims had been shot in their homes and that they were not members of any pro-Assad militias. Activists in Homs had said on Wednesday that the dead were all from pro-government militias.
Groups with links to Al Qaeda have launched an "eye for an eye" campaign, which they say is to take revenge for a chemical-weapons attack in rebel-held suburbs of Damascus in which hundreds of civilians died. Many of the revenge attacks have targeted Alawite areas.
Syrian state television reported that government forces had retaken the village on Wednesday, killing a number of rebels, who they said were mostly foreign fighters.
Syrian troops were also pursuing small groups of rebels inside the historic Christian town of Maalula yesterday, a security official in Damascus said. Fighting was also reported near the Golan Heights.
The army entered Maalula on Wednesday after rebels, including members of Al Nusra, had seized the town several days earlier.
State television broadcast images of military vehicles and troops inside the town, which was almost deserted.
"The army continues to advance in Maalula to defeat the armed men," the official said, describing "pockets of resistance", including snipers, inside the town.
He said recapture of the ancient town was difficult because of its geography - the town is nestled in the side of a cliff, making it an easy target for those stationed above it.
Most of residents have fled, with many taking refuge in the neighbouring Sunni town of Ain Al Tineh, and others travelling to Damascus, 55 kilometres away.
Picturesque Maalula is considered a symbol of the ancient Christian presence in Syria.
Its people are among the few in the world who speak Aramaic, the language of Jesus.
The town, home to about 5,000 people, is strategically important for rebels, who are trying to tighten their grip around the capital and already have bases south and west of Damascus.
Maalula could also be used as a launching point for attacks on the road between the capital and Homs, a key regime supply route.
Meanwhile, the observatory said rebels fighting Mr Al Assad's forces captured the village of Imm Al Lokas in the southern region of Quneitra near Syria's Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
It added that rebels also captured several army posts in the area in heavy fighting that caused casualties on both sides.
Activists also said infighting between rebel forces has killed at least 50 in clashes in the country's north-east.
The observatory said that the fighting took place in Hassakeh province.
It says 13 Kurdish gunmen and 35 militants were killed in clashes between Kurdish fighters and members of Nusra Front and the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant in the past two days.
* Reuters, with additional reporting by Associated Press and Agence France-Presse