Clashes between guards and prisoners at a jail in Syria have resulted in many deaths, a human rights group says.
The London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 25 people had been killed after military police fired live bullets at Islamist inmates.
The Syrian authorities have not yet commented on the situation, which remains unclear. One inmate told the BBC he believed more than 25 had died.
Prisoners said the clashes were sparked by raids in which guards beat inmates.
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The prisoners said the early morning raids were in response to a protest by detainees several weeks ago about conditions at the jail near Damascus, which houses chiefly Islamist and political prisoners.
Billowing smoke
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights quoted a political prisoner reached by mobile phone inside the jail as saying that the riot had been started by Islamist inmates.
A number of prisoners had climbed on to the roof of the prison to escape continued shooting with live ammunition by guards, the group said on its website.
"The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights demands that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad intervenes immediately to stop this massacre," it said.
The group told the AFP news agency that several hundred soldiers were being held hostage in the jail in order to put pressure on the Syrian authorities.
Muhannad al-Hassani, head of Syria's National Organisation for Human Rights, told the Associated Press news agency he could see smoke billowing from the building and prisoners standing on the roof.
He said ambulances were carrying the injured to hospital from the prison.
Another human rights activist in contact with the inmates by telephone told the AP that at least nine people were dead.
(BBC)
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