Gunmen in Syria have shot dead 10 people in what has been described as a “massacre” in a village home to members of ousted president Bashar al-Assad’s Alawite minority, a war monitor reported on Saturday.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights stated that Friday’s attack took place in Arzah village, in northern Hama countryside, an area inhabited by Alawite citizens.
The UK-based monitor, which has an extensive network of sources in Syria, said the gunmen “knocked on doors before shooting people using handguns fitted with silencers” and then fled.
Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman confirmed that a child and an elderly woman were among the victims.

He added that the attackers were Sunni Muslims, describing the killings as sectarian in nature.
Syrian newspaper Al-Watan, citing a security source in Hama, reported that security forces had surrounded the Arzah area in pursuit of the assailants.
Among the victims were former military officers and soldiers, according to the report.
A local resident told AFP that two vehicles carrying seven armed men entered the village under the pretext of inspecting homes for weapons.
The attackers forced male residents to kneel before executing them “in cold blood,” the witness said, speaking anonymously due to fears of reprisal.
The gunmen then fled, and the victims’ bodies were taken to Hama National Hospital before burial.
Despite assurances from Syria’s new rulers—who overthrew Assad in December—Alawites remain fearful of retaliation due to their historical association with the Assad family.
Since Assad’s ousting, the Observatory has recorded at least 162 Alawite killings.
Earlier on Friday, Syria’s new authorities announced the arrest of Assad’s cousin, Atif Najib, who is accused of leading a crackdown in Daraa, where the 2011 uprising first erupted.
The nationwide protests were violently suppressed by Assad’s regime, triggering a civil war that has claimed over half a million lives.