Deserters kill 15 security personnel: Syria activists

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that a group of deserters blew up a device as a military van and a vehicle passed by in Al-Madiq area, killing seven soldiers.Eight other security personnel were killed in a similar attack on a convoy carrying security agents and pro-regime militiamen on the road between Qaalet al-Madiq and Sqailbiyeh, it said in a statement received in Nicosia.The Observatory said the attacks were carried out in response to the massacre of 11 workers earlier the same day by a pro-regime group in Homs, another province in central Syria.The gunmen stormed a factory in the restive province, killing the 11, while security forces shot dead eight civilians in several Homs neighbourhoods, the rights watchdog said.The Syrian Free Army, an armed opposition group which a senior defector, Colonel Riad al-Asaad, said from neighbouring Turkey was being formed in July, claimed responsibility for the Sqailbiyeh attack, in a Tweeter message.It said the attack killed six and wounded 20 others.