More than 60 bodies have been taken to hospitals in the central Syrian city of Homs following a series of kidnappings that began on Sunday, activists have said.
Activists and residents of several neighbourhoods said on Monday that Sunni residents had been kidnapped by "shabiha," armed, mostly Alawite gangs that support the government.
An Alawite human rights activists, meanwhile, told Al Jazeera's Rula Amin that there were killings and kidnappings on both sides of the divide, with people too afraid to leave their homes.
"Mad gangs have taken hold of the streets," the activist, who did not want to be named, said.
The renewed violence in Homs, reportedly one of the bloodiest days since widespread anti-Assad protests began in March, came as the Syrian government responded positively to an Arab League plan to send human rights observers to the country.
President Bashar al-Assad and the ruling elite are mostly Alawite, a sect of Shia Islam, while the majority of the country is Sunni. Protests against Assad that began in March have escalated into an armed conflict between the government and its armed groups on one side, and civilians and defected soldiers on the other.
An activist in the Zahraa district told the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights that shabiha had kidnapped and killed at least 34 people from districts of Homs known to oppose Assad.
Many of the city's neighbourhoods were came under heavy assault from early on Monday morning, the observatory said.
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