MISSILES rained on a government military outpost in the central Syrian city of Hama last night leaving 26 dead in a dangerous escalation of the country’s war.

The dead were said to include 18 Iranians according to that country’s ISNA news agency, but another Iranian agency, Tasnim, denied that Iranians were among the victims.

Syrian TV denounced a “new aggression” and said a number of military facilities in the Hama and Aleppo countryside had been hit.