A Syrian official source stated Thursday that 16 people were killed, including women and children, and 12 others were wounded in an explosion in an apartment used by armed groups for building explosive devices in Hama.

A Syrian official source stated Thursday that 16 people were killed, including women and children, and 12 others were wounded in an explosion in an apartment used by armed groups for building explosive devices in Hama.

The source also pointed out that the explosion caused damages to the houses in the area.

In parallel, Syrian News Agency SANA reported that the armed groups committed a massacre against four citizens from one family in Erbin region in Damascus countryside.

The agency quoted a source at the police command as saying that “masked terrorists opened fire on the family members, causing their immediate death due to gunshot in the head, indicating that “the terrorist group filmed the bodies in order to send the footage to satellite channels that would blame the security forces.”

For its part, Russia criticized the Syrian armed groups on Thursday, and accused them of waging a wide-scale terror campaign that is designed to kill as many civilians as possible despite ceasefire.

“Opposition groups have essentially reverted to waging wide-scale terror in the region," Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich stated.

Moreover, the spokesman said that the armed groups “were reverting to tactics that pointed to the involvement of Al-Qaeda.”

“There is another side in Syria," he added, pointing out that the attacks “that are aimed at killing as many peaceful civilians as possible and destroying civilian infrastructure, remind one of what is happening in Iraq, Jordan and other places where Al-Qaeda and its groups operate."

This comes as the international observer mission continues its tour in various Syrian regions, arriving earlier Thursday to Duma in Damascus countryside, while a Russian source announced that four Russians will be joining the 30-members team by the end of April.