DAMASCUS: A Syrian lawmaker was gunned down and killed in the restive central province of Hama, state media and officials said Wednesday in the latest assassination to target a figure linked to President Bashar Assad’s government.

Gunmen opened fire at Waris al-Younes’ car as he was traveling on a road linking the city of Hama with the town of Salamiya, according to the state-run SANA news agency. He represented Hama province in the parliament in Damascus.

A Syrian official, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with regulations, told the Associated Press that Younes was killed Tuesday night.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.

“An armed group opened fire on MP Waris al-Younes’ car as it traveled on the Hama-Salamiya road at around 9 p.m. Tuesday evening, killing him instantly,” a parliamentary source told AFP.

Younes was a representative from the coastal province of Tartous, a stronghold of Assad, and a bastion of the Alawite minority sect to which the embattled leader belongs.

Rami Abdel-Rahman, director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an anti-regime group, said Younes was a commander in the pro-regime National Defense Force militia.

The militia is fighting alongside government troops against rebels in various parts of Syria, including Hama province.

Several Syrian officials have been assassinated since Syria’s crisis began in March 2011. The uprising that later turned into a civil war has killed more than 190,000 people, according to the U.N.

Syrian opposition forces have targeted government officials, army and police officers and civil servants in their campaign to topple Assad.

One of the most dramatic assassinations during the civil war so far was in July 2012, when a bomb at a high-level crisis meeting in Damascus killed four top officials, including Assad’s brother-in-law and the defense minister.

Elsewhere Wednesday, fighting continued in the rebel-held Jobar neighborhood of greater Damascus, and missiles were launched by the regime at the area.

The army repelled an attempt by rebels to infiltrate beyond Jobar, Syrian state media said, “killing several of them after discovering a number of tunnels through which the terrorists tried to infiltrate.”

On Tuesday, at least 15 Islamist fighters were killed in clashes with the regime army in Jobar, according to the Observatory.

Syrian government warplanes carried out air raids on the countryside in the east of Hama province and helicopters dropped barrel bombs on the town of Saraqeb in Idlib province in the north, according to the Observatory, wounded several people.

The regime also bombed Waer, the last rebel-held area in Homs city.

Pro-government forces also fought with Nusra Front and Islamist battalions in the north, the Observatory said.