200 bodies found in town near Damascus

Syrian opposition activists accused President Bashar al-Assad's forces of committing a massacre of scores of people in a town close to the capital that the army had just retaken from rebels.

More than 200 bodies were found in houses and basements around Daraya, a working-class Sunni town to the southwest of Damascus, according to activists who said most had been killed "execution-style" by troops on house-to-house raids.

Due to restrictions on non-state media in Syria, it was impossible to independently verify the accounts.

"Assad's army has committed a massacre in Daraya," said Abu Kinan, an activist in the town, using an alias to protect himself from reprisals.

"In the last hour, 122 bodies were discovered and it appears that two dozen died from sniper fire and the rest were summarily executed by gunshots from close range," Abu Kinan told Reuters by telephone. The activist said he witnessed the death of an eight-year-old girl shot by army snipers while she was in a car with her parents.

"They were trying to flee the army raids. Three bullets hit her in the back and her parents brought her to a makeshift hospital. Nothing could be done for her," he said.

The official state news agency said: "Our heroic armed forces cleansed Daraya from remnants of armed terrorist groups who committed crimes against the sons of the town and scared them and sabotaged and destroyed public and private property.” The Local Coordination Committees, an activists' organisation, said Assad's forces killed 440 people across Syria on Saturday, including dozens of women and children.