Rights group: Nearly 9,000 Syrian troops killed in war

Figure a fraction of the 70,000 estimated deaths in two-year civil war

Free Syrian Army fighters fire at Syrian army soldiers during a fierce firefight in Syria, March 18, 2013. (photo credit: AP/Shaam News Network)
Free Syrian Army fighters fire at Syrian army soldiers during a fierce firefight in Syria, March 18, 2013. (photo credit: AP/Shaam News Network)

BEIRUT (AP) — A Syrian human rights group says nearly 9,000 government troops have been killed in two years of fighting between President Bashar Assad’s forces and rebels trying to topple him.

The Syria-based Violations Documentation Center has been keeping track of the dead, wounded and missing since the start the uprising against Assad’s rule. It said on Monday 8,785 Syrian troops have died in the fighting.

The rare report on the regime’s death toll was compiled from government and opposition sources.

At the start of the revolt, authorities published names of the fallen troops daily. As the uprising turned more violent and eventually became a civil war, reports of casualties on government side vanished from the public domain.

More than 70,000 people have died since Syria’s crisis erupted in March 2011.

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.

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