Boy, woman among six killed in Syria

A boy and a woman were among at least six civilians killed on Wednesday as Syrian security forces waged a crackdown on dissent in northwestern Idlib province, a rights group said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, a statement received by AFP in Nicosia, that "a 12-year-old boy and a woman" were killed in the city of Idlib, the provincial capital.

The British-based organisation said the forces loyal to embattled President Bashar al-Assad also killed another four people in the province which borders Turkey.

One of the four was a man gunned down as he made his way along a road between Idlib city and the village of Al-Nirb, while another was a man shot dead in Saraqeb village.

The deaths came as clashes erupted Wednesday between armed rebels fighting to overthrow Assad's regime and security forces in the flashpoint southern province of Daraa, the Observatory said.

So far there have been no reports of any other casualties from the fighting, but the rights group said electricity and telephone lines had been cut off.

The United Nations said earlier this month that more than 3,500 people have been killed in the unrest since mid-March.