More than 100 reported killed as violence intensifies in Syria

DAMASCUS—Morethan 100 people were reported killed on Saturday in violence across Syria, as Turkey played down Syria’s shooting down of one of its warplanes.

President Bashar Assad meanwhile formed a new cabinet, but kept the key posts unchanged.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 116 people, 77 of them civilians, were killed in violence across the country on Saturday as regime forces stepped up attacks on towns.

The Britain-based monitoring group said the civilians had been killed in the bombardment of rebel bastions.

They included a family of six in Deir Ezzor, eastern Syria; a man and his three children in Kfaraaya, in the central province of Homs; and four members of the same family, including two children, in Hama, central Syria.

Nineteen soldiers were killed in fighting with rebels, and 10 died among the rebel forces, the Observatory said. Another 10 soldiers were gunned down as they tried to defect to antiregime forces, it added.

On Friday, at least 116 people were also reported killed.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) condemned the killing of a Syrian Arab Red Crescent volunteer, in the fourth such incident in the country’s deadly unrest.

Bashar al-Youssef, 23, was shot and fatally wounded on Friday in Deir Ezzor in eastern Syria, the two organizations said in a joint statement.

Assad meanwhile announced the formation of a new government under PrimeMinister DrRiad Hijab, less than two months after controversial parliamentary elections boycotted by the opposition.

But he left his key ministers in place: Foreign Minister Walid alMuallem, along with the defence and interior ministers, Daoud Rajha and Mohammad al-Shaar.