Syrian rebels have killed 23 soldiers and destroyed three armoured vehicles, according to a rights group opposed to President Bashar al-Assad, in battles around the town of Rastan. The fighting on the outskirts of Rastan followed heavy army shelling of the town in which opposition sources said at least nine people were killed, including a local rebel commander.

Rastan is a strategic town and a stronghold of the Free Syrian Army. Many defectors from the army comes from Rastan.

Syrian army soldiers defected the national army to join the free Syrian army with armoured infantry fighting vehicle BMP-1 and light combat vehicles at Khaldiyeh neighborhood, in Homs province, central Syria.

Meanwhile, Syrian troops backed by tanks shot dead seven civilians when they overran a rebellious Sunni Muslim village west of the city of Hama on Sunday, activists' organisations said, in a crackdown on the rural epicentre of the 14-month anti-government revolt.

In neighbouring Lebanon, three people were killed when fighting erupted in the city of Tripoli between members of the Alawite minority loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and members of the Sunni majority.

In the Syrian countryside, at least 27 people were wounded and scores of houses were burnt in the village of Tamanaa in al-Ghab, said the Syrian Network for Human Rights, an opposition activists' group.