Twenty-nine soldiers and a Shia cleric were among 58 people killed in violence across Syria on Wednesday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. At least 20 troops died in clashes in the north-western province of Latakia, while another five were killed in fighting that erupted late Tuesday in the Kurdish Mountain region, the watchdog said.
"The majority died in direct fighting... while other soldiers were killed in a rebel attack on two buildings which the army was using to launch mortar attacks against the Kurdish Mountain," the Observatory's Rami Abdel Rahman said. In Idlib, another north-western province, five troops were killed when a car bomb exploded at their checkpoint. Two civilians were also killed in the region.