In Syria 31 killed on Sunday

Funeral in Homs (Reuters)

The killing in Syria seems to have no end. According to Reuters at least 31 people were killed across Syria on Sunday, several of them in shootings between army deserters and troops loyal to President Assad. The Syrian activist group the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that 14 of the dead were civilians and 17 were from the army and security forces. The demonstrations themselves have been mainly peaceful, according to the Observatory, but there have been increasing reports of Sunni conscripts deserting and turning their guns on security forces, dominated by Assad's minority Alawite sect.
The Observatory, which has its base in Britain, also said that suspected deserters killed eight soldiers in simultaneous attacks on three army posts in the northern province of Idlib. In the city of Homs, seven civilians were shot dead and another eight people were later killed in clashes between troops and suspected deserters, the group said. Homs has seen some of the worst violence in recent weeks, including a series of unexplained attacks on local officials and university staff. The grassroots Local Coordination Committees said in a statement Monday it had collected names of 180 people it said were killed in Homs in September and another 73 killed in the first nine days of October.