BEIRUT — At least nine people were killed and several wounded in a series of mortar bomb attacks on the Syrian capital Damascus, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Sunday. The monitoring group said children were among those killed. A Syrian source said a number of mortar bombs hit several residential areas in the capital on Saturday causing casualties among civilians. He did not give more details There was no claim of responsibility but insurgents based in the Eastern Ghouta region near Damascus have carried out rocket and mortar bomb attacks on the capital in the past.
Damascus, the seat of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad's government, came under heavy bombardment in late 2014 and early 2015 in the four-year-old civil war that has killed at least a quarter of a million people.
Meanwhile, dozens of Syrians staged a rare protest in the coastal city of Latakia, bastion of Bashar Al-Assad, calling for the punishment of a member of his family they accuse of killing an army officer over a traffic dispute, monitors said.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said more than 1,000 people gathered in Latakia on Saturday night holding up pictures of Col. Hassan Al-Shaikh, who died after a traffic incident there last week.
The demonstrators called for the execution of Suleiman Al-Assad, son of the president's cousin Hilal, who was killed in battles with insurgents last year. They also chanted slogans in support of the president.
Details of what happened vary. But according to the Observatory and supporters of President Assad on social media, Suleiman Al-Assad was angered when Al-Shaikh, who was in a car with his family, overtook his vehicle in a Latakia street, and so shot him dead nearby shortly afterwards.
Some Assad supporters said Suleiman's bodyguard was the one who killed Al-Shaikh. — Reuters
