Christian minority villagers attacked in Syrian attack London – Arab Today Gunmen have shot dead 11 people, mostly Christians, in central Syria, according to the State run SANA news agency and activists .
According to residents quoting eyewitnesses, armed men opened fire outside restaurants in a drive-by shooting in the ethnic minority village of Ein al-Ajouz as Christians were celebrating a feast day.
The news agency described the attack as a “massacre”, and said women and children were amongst the dead.
Activists in the area said pro-government militia manning checkpoints were also killed.
Britain’s Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that nine of the victims were Christian.  It said opposition fighters attempting to overthrow President Bash al Assad attacked the checkpoint, manned by pro-government National Defence force militia.
A Facebook page run by pro-government forces showed the faces of five ‘martyrs’ from the militia wearing military fatigues, who were killed.
Syria’s minority Christian population says it is vulnerable to cross-fire violence sweeping the country.  They make up 10 percent of the population, and are accused by Sunni opposition groups as loyalists to Assad’s forces, dominated by the Alawite sect –an offshoot of Shiite Islam.
Archbishop Eleys Dhaher of the Wadi al-Nasarra region, which includes the village where the attack happened, said 15 people had been killed, adding, “It seems that tension and the sectarian rift have reached a level where no area can enjoy peace”.
Many Christians have fled to Wadi al-Nasarra, or Valley of the Christians, considered a safe haven from the violence in the country.
Dhaher denied that attacks represent an attempt to clear the area of Christians adding that sectarian rifts have \"reached every spot of the homeland\".
Tens of thousands Christians have evacuated the downtown district of Homs, which has seen some of the heaviest clashes since fighting erupted two years ago.
In April Italian Jesuit priest, Father Paolo Dall\'Oglio, went missing while on a trip to the rebel-held north-eastern city of Raqqa, however sectarian attacks against Christians are mainly uncommon.
More than 100,000 people have been killed in the Syrian conflict which began in March 2011.