Anger as Assad sends in bulldozers

Syrian army bulldozers have razed houses in western Damascus, pursuing what activists say is the first campaign of collective punishment targeting people’s property in areas of the capital hostile to president Bashar al-Assad.

Backed by combat troops, they demolished buildings in the poor Tawahin district, near the Damascus-Beirut highway, activists and residents said.

“They started three hours ago. The bulldozers are bringing down shops and houses. The inhabitants are in the streets,” said a woman whose home overlooks the area.

Troops forced residents to erase anti-Assad graffiti and write slogans glorifying the president instead, activists said.

“This is an unprovoked act of collective punishment. The rebels had left, there are no longer even demonstrations in the area,” said Mouaz al-Shami, a campaigner collecting video documentation of the demolitions.

Activists also reported the razing or burning of at least 200 houses and shops in the old part of the southern city of Deraa in the past few days. Army shelling had largely emptied the area, with an estimated 40,000 people fleeing to Jordan.

Bulldozers entered the Khashabeh area of the northern Damascus suburb of Harasta yesterday and began razing houses in the neighbourhood. The latest wave of demolitions follows the destruction of dozens of buildings in an area next to Tawahin on Sunday and in the Sunni district of Qaboun last month.

In northern Syria, meanwhile, 18 bodies were found in the rubble of a house bombed by a Syrian war plane in the rebel-held town of al-Bab, and 13 more people were missing, an opposition watchdog group said.