The so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) announced on Monday it had received death threats from extremists over reporting that dozens of foreign-backed militants were killed last week during clashes with Syrian for

The so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) announced on Monday it had received death threats from extremists over reporting that dozens of foreign-backed militants were killed last week during clashes with Syrian forces.

"Recently, we have received a large number of death threats... on the SOHR (Facebook) page and the (Skype) and email accounts of numerous members and activists," the group said in an email.

The SOHR is a prominent source of information for the armed opposition fighting the Syrian government.

Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP that the threats originated from extremists, declining to specify which ones.

"These groups are trying to locate our sources in the regions under their control," he said, particularly in the north and east of the country, as well as in parts of Damascus province.
"These sources are being threatened," he said.

Abdel Rahman said the group has been threatened before, but the latest threats appeared to be the most serious, prompting him to go public with them.
He said they began after his group published information last week about the deaths of dozens of extremist militants, killed by regime fire in an area near Damascus.

"To all those parties who accuse us of falsifying the facts, saying that those we said were Islamist rebels were civilian martyrs... we urge you to publish their names or photos of these civilians," the Observatory said in an email.

"Is it not astonishing that several days after the incident, there have been no photos or names of a single child or a single woman among the dozens supposed to have died in the shelling?"