A lawmaker in the central Syrian province of Hama was gunned down Tuesday night, adding to the list of several, Syrian government figures who've been killed in targeted blasts over the last four years, the AP reports.
According to Syria's state-run news agency, SANA, Waris al-Younnes, who was the Hama province parliament representative in Damascus, was killed by gunshot while traveling along a road between the providence centeral city of Hama and the village of Salamiyeh.
The AP later independently verified the death after speaking with an anonymous Syrian governemnt official, who confirmed al-Younnes had been killed Tuesday.
Reports by the AFP also indicate al-Younnes was a commander in a pro-regime armed faction called the National Defence Force militia, which is fighting alongside government forces against pro-opposution rebels in Hama and other areas across the country.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government suffered its largest blow in officials' deaths in 2012, when a bomb detonated during a crisis meeting in Damascus and killed Assad's brother-in-law, the defense minister and two other high-ranking officials.
