More than 200 bodies were found in a town outside Damascus.

Dozens of bodies were found Saturday in a town outside Damascus that has been the focus of what activists described as a scorched-earth campaign by Syrian troops aiming to wipe out rebels and their sympathizers in several suburbs of the capital.

Forty to 50 bodies were found in the town of Daraya, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based group with a network of activists inside Syria. The town had already sustained heavy shelling, and bodies have been turning up there for days in the wake of army raids, leading activists to count more than 100 dead since Wednesday.

Most of the victims were found Saturday in the basement of one building, activists said.

Maher al-Mikdad, the spokesman for the family clan that kidnapped more than 30 Syrians in retaliation for the abduction of a relative this month in Syria, told reporters that his family let most of the captives go "as a goodwill gesture."

He said that in order to press for the release of his relative, Hassan al-Mikdad, the clan would hold onto four Syrians who he said are members of the Free Syrian Army, the main group of rebel fighters in Syria, and a Turkish man who was also kidnapped.

The al-Mikdad is a powerful Shiite clan in Lebanon.