BEIRUT: A group monitoring the Syrian civil war said insurgents killed at least 19 civilians after capturing an Alawite village from government control in western Syria on Thursday, but insurgents denied targeting civilians.
Residents from the village of al-Zara interviewed by state media said rebels had killed women, children and livestock.
Dozens of people are still missing, believed to have been abducted from the village, which lies close to a main highway linking the western cities of Homs and Hama, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Friday.
The Observatory said the attackers included Islamist rebel group Ahrar al-Sham and the al Qaeda-affiliated Nusra Front.
An Ahrar al-Sham spokesman said: "Civilians were not targeted. On the contrary factions made great effort to spare civilians and deal with prisoners humanely."
The Observatory cited sources saying the 19 dead, who included six women, were from families of fighters loyal to President Bashar al-Assad and were killed as rebels stormed houses during their attack on al-Zara.
An image shared on social media purported to show rebel fighters next to the bodies of two women in al-Zara.
Responding to the image, an alliance of rebel groups behind the attack said the women had been killed because they were armed and opened fire during the fighting.
It said in a statement that the way some fighters had dealt with enemy corpses as shown in the photo was against their religious values and the perpetrators would be held to account.
Reuters
