Surrender ends shelling of Sunni village in Syria

Syrian government forces have reached an agreement with local officials of a vulnerable Sunni village in a region dominated by President Bashar Assad’s Alawite sect to end hours of deadly shelling in exchange for the surrender of dozens of opposition fighters, an activist group said today.

The shelling of al-Mitras began at dawn, killing eight civilians while fierce fighting between rebels and government forces on the outskirts of the village left 20 soldiers dead or wounded, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.