Your trusted source

Nearly 150 Syrian soldiers have been besieged inside a hospital in Jisr al-Shughur since opposition forces including an Al-Qaeda affiliate seized the town last week, activists said Thursday, AFP reported.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that separately another 200 people - regime forces and their families, captured from Jisr al-Shughur and its surroundings in the northwestern province of Idlib - were being held hostage.

Earlier this week, the Syrian government said a "massacre" of some 200 civilians had taken place in the region of Jisr al-Shughur, which fell Saturday to a coalition of Al-Qaeda affiliate Al-Nusra Front and other opposition groups.

"Nearly 150 soldiers and some civilians are besieged inside a hospital building and there were violent clashes on Thursday between them and rebels" outside the building, Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman said.

Syria's Al-Watan newspaper, which is close to the government, appeared to make reference to the same group on Thursday, saying "soldiers were engaged in heavy fighting" against "thousands of terrorists" in the vicinity of the hospital.

The Observatory said Nusra and other rebel groups in control of Jisr al-Shughur had tried to take the building in an unsuccessful attack on Wednesday.

Separately, the monitor said, some 200 people were being held by Nusra and allied forces.