Syria: Fresh violence raises toll to 535

Published on Saturday 30 April 2011 15:05

SYRIAN troops backed by tanks and helicopters have captured a high-profile mosque that had been controlled by residents in the besieged southern city of Deraa, killing at least four people.

The operation yesterday came a day after president Bashar al-Assad ordered a crackdown on a months-old revolt, killing at least 65 people, mostly in the border town, while a United Nations' vote paved the way for action against the country's regime.

Deraa resident Abdullah Abazeid said the assault on the mosque lasted 90 minutes, during which troops fired tank shells and heavy machine guns.

Three helicopters took part in the operation, dropping paratroopers on to the mosque itself, he added.

The Omari mosque, in the city's Roman-era old town, had been occupied by residents during a six-week-old uprising and has been under siege since last Monday, when the government sent in tanks to crush the demonstrations.

Among the dead was Osama Ahmad, the son of the mosque's imam, sheikh Ahmad Sayasna. The other three dead were a woman and her daughters killed when a tank shell hit their home near the mosque.

Meanwhile on Friday, in a 26-9 vote, the UN's top human rights body used a special session to say it "unequivocally condemns the use of lethal violence" by Syrian authorities against peaceful demonstrators and the "hindrance to access of medical treatment".

The session saw nations demand that Assad's government immediately stop the violence, release political prisoners and lift restrictions on media and access to the internet.

The Human Rights Council, based in Geneva, Switzerland, said it would ask the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights to dispatch a mission to investigate "all alleged violations of international human rights law and to establish the facts and circumstances of such violations and of the crimes perpetrated".

China and Russia were among those opposed, while Saudi Arabia and six other nations abstained.

Earlier this week, another 200 mostly low-level Baath party members in Deraa province resigned over the brutal crackdown.

In the early hours of yesterday, military reinforcements poured into Deraa, including 20 armoured personnel carriers, four tanks, and a military ambulance.

The head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Rami Abdul-Rahman, said 65 people were killed on Friday, with 36 of the deaths in Deraa province, 27 in the central Homs region, one in Latakia and another in the countryside near the capital, Damascus.

In all, 535 civilians have been killed since the uprising began in mid-March.

An activist said authorities have ordered families of some of those killed on Friday to hold small funerals attended by family members only.

Similar orders were given last week, but most people did not abide by them, the activist added.

The move appeared to be an attempt by authorities to avoid more bloodshed, with funerals in the past weeks turning into demonstrations.

Ammar Qurabi, who heads the National Organisation for Human Rights in Syria, said authorities were forcing families of the dead to sign documents saying their loved ones were killed by "armed groups".

He added that about 100 people from the Homs region are missing, saying that could mean they have been killed, detained or wounded.

Deraa has been without electricity, water and telephone connections since Monday, with residents fleeing across the border to Jordan.

The uprising began in Deraa after the arrest of teenagers who wrote anti-regime graffiti on a wall. Sporadic gunfire was heard in the city yesterday, mainly from the central area, another Deraa witness said. He said for the past week troops had been allowing women to go out to buy bread, but yesterday they were stopped.

In the coastal city of Banias, a resident said armed forces had withdrawn from the city centre after taking up positions there earlier in the month.

The witnesses' accounts could not be independently verified. All spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of government reprisals.

Syria has banned nearly all foreign media and restricted access to trouble spots, making it almost impossible to verify the events shaking one of the most authoritarian regimes in the Arab world.

Large demonstrations were reported on Friday in Damascus, the central city of Homs, the coastal cities of Banias and Latakia, the northern cities of Raqqa and Hama, and the north-eastern town of Qamishli near the Turkish border.

It was broadcast on Syrian TV on Friday that military and police forces had come under attack by "armed terrorists" in Deraa and Homs, killing four soldiers and three police officers.

Two soldiers were captured but were later rescued by the army, state TV said. The station also said one of its cameramen was injured in Latakia by an armed gang.

US president Barack Obama's administration has imposed financial penalties on three top Syrian officials, including Assad's brother, Maher, as well as Syria's intelligence agency and Iran's Revolutionary Guard over the crackdown.

Meanwhile, diplomats say the UN's nuclear watchdog agency is setting the stage for potential UN Security Council action on Syria as it prepares a report likely to confirm that a Syrian target bombed by Israeli warplanes in 2007 was probably a secret nuclear reactor meant to produce plutonium.