Syria has executed 24 people for deliberately starting devastating forest fires that destroyed leader Bashar al-Assad's ancestral home of Latakia.
The huge fires burned for nearly a year and caused tens of millions of dollars of losses in cultivated plots of mainly citrus, apples and olive trees across the coastal provinces.
Those executed on Wednesday were charged with committing "terrorist acts that led to death and damage to state infrastructure, public and private property," the ministry said. 11 others were sentenced to life in prison on the same charge.
No details were provided on where and how the executions took place.