Twenty-six men believed to be pro-government "Shabbiha" fighters have been killed in Syria's northern Aleppo province, an activist monitoring group said on Friday.

A video link sent (not displayed here due to its graphic and disturbing nature) by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights showed several men covered in blood and piled on top of each other on the side of a road.

Many wore army fatigues but some were just wearing t-shirts.

The Observatory appeared to be refering to the same incident that Syrian state televsion had reported earlier in which 25 people were said to have been killed by "armed terrorists" in Darat Azzah village.

[Reuters]