Syria: Government officials killed in shootings, while government blames 'terrorists' for uprising

Syrians pull a corpse out of a water canal on February 19, 2012 following an assault by Syrian security forces in Idlib in northwestern Syria. Rights groups say more than 6,000 people have been killed since Syrian regime forces began cracking down on anti-government protests launched 11 months ago. (Getty Images)

BEIRUT (AP) – Gunmen opened fire Sunday on a car carrying a senior Syrian state prosecutor and a judge in the restive northwest province of Idlib, killing both of them and their driver, according to the state news agency.

Syrian military defectors waging an armed struggle against President Bashar Assad's regime control parts of Idlib province, which borders Turkey. It has been one of the regions hardest hit by the government crackdown on an 11-month-old uprising against Assad's regime.

State news agency SANA said Idlib provincial state prosecutor Nidal Ghazal and Judge Mohammed Ziadeh were killed instantly in the attack. Activists reported at least 14 other people killed

On Saturday, SANA said gunmen shot dead Jamal al-Bish, member of the city council of the nearby northern city of Aleppo, Syria's largest. It said he was killed outside the city, a center of support for Assad that has been relatively quiet since the uprising began.

The Syrian government blames armed "terrorists" for the uprising and says they are carrying out a foreign conspiracy to destabilize the country.

Clashes between military rebels and Syrian forces are growing more frequent and the defectors have managed to take control of small pieces of territory in the north and in central Homs province. The increasing militarization of the conflict is pushing Syria to the brink of a civil war.

The U.N. last gave a death toll for the conflict in January, saying 5,400 had been killed in 2011 alone. But hundreds more have been killed since, according to activist groups. The group Local Coordination Committees says more than 7,300 have been killed since March of last year. There is no way to independently verify the numbers, however, as Syria bans almost all foreign journalists and human rights organizations.

In other violence, activists reported that security forces shelled rebel-held areas in the besieged city of Homs.

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