At least 65 people were found shot dead with their hands bound in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo yesterday in a “new massacre” in the near two-year revolt against President Bashar al-Assad, activists said.

Opposition campaigner blamed the Government but it was impossible to confirm who was responsible. Assad’s forces and rebels have been battling in Syria’s commercial hub since July and both have been accused of carrying out summary executions.

More than 60,000 people are estimated to have been killed in the Syrian war, the longest and deadliest of the revolts that began throughout the Arab world two years ago.

The UN refugee agency said yesterday the fighting had forced more than 700,000 people to flee. World powers fear the conflict could increasingly envelop Syria’s neighbours including Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey, further destabilising an already explosive region.

Opposition activists posted a video of a man filming at least 51 muddied male bodies alongside what they said was the Queiq River in Aleppo’s rebel-held Bustan al-Qasr neighbourhood.

The bodies had bullet wounds in their heads and some of the victims appeared to be young, possibly teenagers, dressed in jeans, shirts and trainers.

Aleppo-based opposition activists who asked not to be named for security reasons blamed pro-Assad militia fighters.

They said the men had been executed and dumped in the river before floating downstream into the rebel area.

State media did not make any mention of the incident.

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which says it provides objective information about casualties on both sides of Syria’s war from a network of monitors, said the footage was evidence of a new massacre and the death toll could rise as high as 80. “They were killed only because they are Muslims,” said a bearded man in another video said to have been filmed in central Bustan al-Qasr after the bodies were removed from the river. A pickup truck with a pile of corpses was parked behind him.

It is hard for Reuters to verify such reports because of restrictions on independent media.

Rebels are stuck in a stalemate with government forces in Aleppo – Syria’s most populous city which is divided roughly in half between the two sides. In the eastern city of Deir al-Zor, insurgents including al-Qaeda-linked Islamist fighters captured a security agency after days of heavy fighting, according to an activist video issued yesterday.

Some of the fighters were shown carrying a black flag with the Islamic declaration of faith and the name of the al-Nusra Front, which has ties to al-Qaeda in neighbouring Iraq.

Fighting also took place in the northern town of Ras al-Ain, on the border with Turkey, between rebels and Kurdish militants, the Observatory said. In Turkey, a second pair of Patriot missile batteries being sent by Nato countries are now operational, a German security official said yesterday.

The US, Germany and the Netherlands each committed to sending two batteries and up to 400 soldiers to operate them after Ankara asked for help tobolster its defences against possible missile attack from Syria.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.