Syrian rebels gun down 28 soldiers

Syrian rebels killed 28 soldiers on Thursday in attacks on three army checkpoints around Saraqeb,a town on Syrias main north-south highway,a monitoring group said.

Some of the dead were shot after they had surrendered,according to a video footage. Rebels berated them,calling them Assads Dogs,before firing round after round into their bodies as they lay on the ground.

The army has lost swathes of land in Idlib and Aleppo province but is fighting to control towns along supply routes to Aleppo city,where its forces are fighting in many districts.

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The head of the pro-opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights,Rami Abdelrahman,said two of the attacked checkpoints at Saraqeb were on the Damascus-Aleppo highway. The third was near a road linking Aleppo with Latakia,a port city still mostly controlled President Bashar al-Assads forces. The rebels have either destroyed or taken six vehicles. They will not stay at the checkpoints for long as Syrian warplanes normally bomb positions after rebels move in, he said.

Abdelrahman said,Five rebels died in the fighting and at least 20 soldiers were killed at the third site.

In other developments,China put forward a new initiative to resolve the 19-month-old conflict,including a phased,region-by-region ceasefire and the setting up of a transitional governing body. A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman said Beijing had made the proposal to international peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi.