NICOSIA: Syrian army deserters killed at least 27 soldiers and members of the security forces during clashes in the southern province of Daraa on Thursday, a rights group said.

The fighting broke out at dawn at checkpoints in three separate locations, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said in a statement sent to AFP in Nicosia.

On Wednesday, army defectors killed at least eight Syrian troops in an act of revenge after security forces shot dead five civilians, in the second such attack in as many days, the Observatory said.

In its latest statement, the rights group said that among 21 civilians killed on Wednesday was an Iraqi woman who snipers shot on the outskirts of Damascus.

As the toll mounted, UN chief Ban Ki-moon urged world powers to act “in the name of humanity” against the crackdown, and the US State Department's special coordinator on Middle East affairs, Frederic Hof, likened the Damascus regime to a “dead man walking.”

The United Nations said this week estimated that more than 5,000 people have been killed in the Syrian government's crackdown on dissent, which enters its 10th month on Thursday.