Gunmen kill 10 in Syria village 'massacre': monitor

Gunmen in Syria have shot dead 10 people in a "massacre" in a village from ousted president Bashar al-Assad's Alawite minority, a war monitor said on Saturday.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said "10 citizens in Arzah village in the northern Hama countryside that is inhabited by citizens of the Alawite sect" were killed in Friday's attack.

The Britain-based monitor, which has a large network of sources on the ground in Syria, said gunmen "rapped on the doors of houses in the village and shot at people using handguns equipped with silencers" before fleeing.

Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman said a child and an elderly woman were among the victims.

He said the gunmen "were Sunni Muslims, and the attacks bear all the hallmarks of sectarian killings".

Syrian newspaper Al-Watan, quoting a security source in Hama, said security forces "are surrounding the Arzah area to hunt the criminals" behind the killings.

It said "former officers and soldiers" were among those who died in the attack.

Despite reassurances from Syria's new rulers who toppled Assad in early December, members of the Alawite community -- a branch of Shia Islam -- fear reprisals because of the minority's link to the Assad clan.

Earlier on Friday, the new authorities announced the arrest of Assad's cousin Atif Najib, accused of orchestrating a crackdown in Daraa, where the 2011 Syrian uprising began.

The nationwide uprising was brutally crushed by Assad, spiraling into a civil war that has killed more than half a million people.