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Syrian troops murdered 320 people including women and children in the civil war’s bloodiest ­massacre, rebels claimed yesterday.

Most were executed with shots to the head or chest in house-to-house raids by soldiers on the rampage, according to opposition activists.

Videos posted on the internet showed the bodies of several ­children wrapped in white sheets and one toddler soaked in blood.

The dead were in homes and basements in the working class Sunni town of Darayya, near Damascus.

President Bashar al-Assad’s troops were accused of killing 440 people at the weekend in one of the highest death tolls since the uprising against his rule started in March last year.

Syrian officials insisted the raids “cleansed” Darayya of armed ­terrorists.

But one rebel said: “Assad’s army has committed a massacre in Darayya. It appears two dozen died from sniper fire and the rest were summarily executed by gunshots from close range.”

The activist, who did not want to be named for fear of reprisals, said he saw an eight-year-old shot by snipers while she was fleeing the carnage with her parents in their car.

He added: “Three bullets hit her in the back and her parents brought her to a makeshift hospital.

“Nothing could be done for her.”

In a video of the dead lying in a mosque in Darayya the voice of the person filming could be heard saying: “A massacre. You are seeing the revenge of Assad’s forces ... more than 150 bodies on the floor.”

Foreign Office minister Alistair Burt said: “I am deeply concerned by emerging reports of a brutal massacre of civilians in Darayya. The Syrian regime’s appalling repression of its people has left little space for independent observers to operate inside the country.

“This makes it difficult to verify what took place.

“If confirmed it would be an atrocity on a new scale, requiring unequivocal condemnation from the international community.”

The UN estimates that more than 18,000 people have been killed in the conflict that pits a mainly Sunni ­opposition against a ruling system ­dominated by the Assad family for the past five decades.

Syrian vice president Farouk Al-Sharaa made his first public appearance in several weeks yesterday, ending rumours that he had defected to Jordan.

He was last seen at the funeral of four officials who were killed in a blast in Damascus on July 18.