- Join the France 24 community here
- Log in
Latest update: 31/07/2011
- Bashar al-Assad - Popular revolt - Syria - unrest
Scores feared dead as tanks storm Syrian protest hub
Syrian tanks have launched an assault on the restive city of Hama, home to some of the biggest demonstrations against the government of President Bashar al-Assad. Residents say scores of civilians have been killed amid intense fighting.
By News Wires (text)
AP - Syrian security forces backed by tanks and snipers killed more than 70 people in a ferocious assault Sunday as the regime raced to crush dissent ahead of Ramadan, the Muslim holy month that could become a turning point in the nearly five-month-old uprising.
President Barack Obama called the reports “horrifying” and said Assad is “completely incapable and unwilling” to respond to the legitimate grievances of the Syrian people.
The worst carnage was in Hama, the scene of a 1982 massacre by President Bashar Assad’s late father and predecessor and a city with a history of defiance against 40 years of Assad family rule. On Sunday, corpses were scattered in the streets and hospitals were overwhelmed with bloodied casualties, suggesting the death toll could rise sharply, witnesses said.
Ramadan, which begins Monday, will present a critical test for the government, which has unleashed deadly firepower since March but still has not been able to put down the revolt. Daily demonstrations are expected to surge during the holy month, when crowds gather in mosques each evening after the dawn-to-dusk fast.
|
Though the violence has so far failed to blunt the protests, the Syrian government appears to be hoping it can frighten people from taking to the streets during Ramadan. The protesters are promising to persevere.
Having sealed off the main roads into Hama almost a month ago, army troops in tanks pushed into the city from four sides before daybreak. Residents shouted “God is great!” and threw firebombs, stones and sticks at the tanks, residents said.
By mid-morning, the city looked like a war zone, residents said. The crackle of gunfire and thud of tank shells echoed across the city, and clouds of black smoke drifted over rooftops.
“It looks like Beirut,” said Hama resident Saleh Abu Yaman, likening his hometown to the Lebanese capital that still bears the scars of nearly two decades of civil war.
Syria has banned most foreign media and restricted coverage, making it difficult to confirm events on the ground. But interviews with witnesses, protesters and activists painted a grim picture Sunday of indiscriminate shelling and sniper fire as residents fought back by erecting barricades and throwing firebombs at their assailants.
It appeared the regime was making an example of Hama, a religiously conservative city about 130 miles (210 kilometers) north of the capital, Damascus. The city has largely has fallen out of government control since June as residents turned on the regime and blockaded the streets against encroaching tanks.
The United States and France enraged the government earlier this month when their ambassadors traveled to Hama in a trip designed to demonstrate solidarity with demonstrators.
But Sunday’s deadly siege only ignited more calls for defiance among protesters.
The Local Coordination Committees, which helps organize anti-government protests, urged people to take to the streets and start a general strike to protest the killings.
“If you don’t unchain yourselves now and save your country now, you will be ruled like slaves for years and decades to come,” the group said.
An escalation in violence during Ramadan, a time of heightened religious fervor for devout Muslims, would bring a new dimension to the unrest in Syria, which has reached a stalemate in recent weeks. Assad’s elite forces have waged nearly nonstop crackdowns around the country, but new protest hotbeds have emerged _ taxing the already exhausted and overextended military.
There have been credible reports of army defections, although it is difficult to gauge how widespread they are. Assad, and his father who ruled before him, stacked key military posts with members of their minority Alawite sect, melding the fate of the army and the regime.
The army has a clear interest in protecting the regime because they fear revenge attacks and persecution should the country’s Sunni majority gain the upper hand.
The searing August heat will only compound the already combustible scenario.
In London, British Foreign Secretary William Hague said the attacks were “all the more shocking” on the eve of Ramadan and appeared to be part of a coordinated effort to deter Syrians from protesting during the holy month.
“President Bashar (Assad) is mistaken if he believes that oppression and military force will end the crisis in his country. He should stop this assault on his own people now,” Hague said.
Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini appealed to the Syrian government “to immediately cease the violence against civilians,” calling it “a horrible act of violent repression against protesters who have been demonstrating for days in a peaceful manner.”
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called for an end to the violence and reminded Syrian authorities that “they are accountable under international human rights law for all acts of violence perpetrated by them against the civilian population.”
But months of withering criticism and sanctions by the international community has not softened the regime’s crackdown. Assad has brushed off the criticism as foreign interference.
More than 1,600 civilians have been killed in the crackdown on the largely peaceful protests against Assad’s regime since the uprising began. Most were killed in shootings by security forces at anti-government rallies.
The government has sought to discredit those behind the protests by saying they are terrorists and foreign-backed extremists, not true reform-seekers. State-run news agency SANA blamed the unrest Sunday on gunmen and extremists, and said two policemen, an officer and two soldiers were killed.
Sunday’s death toll was expected to rise as hospitals received the dead. The Local Coordination Committees identified 49 civilians who were killed in Hama. The figure was confirmed by the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which cited hospital officials in Hama.
Two others were killed in the Hama countryside; 13 were killed in al-Joura in the eastern city of Deir el-Zour; and four were slain when they ventured out to buy bread in the al-Hirak village in the southern province of Daraa.
Since the uprising began, Hama has been one of the hottest centers of the demonstrations, with hundreds of thousands protesting every week. In early June, security forces shot dead 65 people there before pulling out. Until Sunday, the troops have stayed on the outskirts, ringing the city and conducting overnight raids.
In 1982, Assad’s father, Hafez Assad, ordered the military to quell a rebellion by Syrian members of the conservative Muslim Brotherhood movement. The city was sealed off and bombs dropped from above smashed swaths of the city and killed between 10,000 and 25,000 people, rights groups say.
The real number may never be known. Then, as now, reporters were not allowed to reach the area.
Related Content
Breaking news from the MIDDLE EAST
‘Darth Vader’ demands free land from Ukrainian government
Browse all editions
FRANCE 24 PARTNERS
Comments (8)
Syrian regime is not violent enough
I invite you to speculate what would have happened in so called "democracies" like USA and France (which Marine Le Pen correctly says are not democratic at all!) if tens of thousands of armed thugs would loot and set blaze to hospitals, shops and houses as well as shoot to kill anyone in uniform!?! In New Orleans hundreds of unarmed looters were killed during Katrina so I guess there would be thousands killed if these poor looters had a politica; agenda to replace the Presidential System with a different one (an Islamic Emirate in Syria's case). How much longer will the gulliable West continue to portray the Syrian Regime in such a twisted way? The European Establishment's 'see no evil hear no evil' in the face of islamic extremism never fails to amaze!
Syria
THIS IS PART TWO OF THE PHYLISTIC POLITICAL SCIENCE ADDRESS ON SYRIA ------ DATED JULY 31, 2011 POSTED ON MYSPACE AND FACEBOOK -------- 10PM EPT -------- THIS IS BEING POSTED ON A WIKILEAKS WEBSITE --------- COMMENTS CAN BE POSTED THERE
I find it somewhat hard to believe that not enough international attention has been focused on the acts of crimes of genocide the regime in Syria has been responsible for carrying out under the dictatorship of President Bashar al-Assad. In fact the impunity from punishment that can warrant strong international condemnation to prosecute them for their crime against humanity has not been forth coming. All we have seen is small steps in carrying out sanctions but sanctions along is not going to stop this regime from murdering innocent men, women, and children. The fact that the evidences has been overwhelmingly quite clear to the international public community, this is a ruthless gang of thugs that wants to ignite ethnic cleansing and civil unrest…..etc. Moreover, there has been no strong international coordinated condemnation among heads of states what so ever summing at the United Nations that can bring about the needed call to prosecute Bashar al-Assad for crimes against humanity other than what Phylistic Political Science had said at the United Nations, that this regime has already lost their legitimacy to govern. So the question now is how do we go about calling for an international tribunal already called upon by Phylistic Political Science to prosecute the crimes of genocide committed by this dictatorship. So the only major criticism of this regime thus far has been from human rights organizations monitoring the situation from out side of Syria. The fact that the regime have not allowed international press coverage on the ground said a lot about how much this regime has been trying to cover up their acts of crimes against humanity punishable by international law. The only option right now is to warn this region to cease their ethnic cleansing and to allow for international air-drone surveillance of all major areas in Syria, also to allow for international news press coverage and allow human rights organization on the ground. In other words, what we are confronted with is the ignorance on the part of some in the international community to put up a united front forward to punish those in Syria responsible for the atrocity and crimes that were committed. Placating the regime on the part of the west, Russia, and China has been to ignore the perpetrators of such hate crimes that have only given them credence to want to continue instigating even more crimes because they think they are above international law and they think they can get away with it without international prosecution. If we can start the process of prosecuting the crimes of genocide that has taken place in Libya then we should be able to start prosecuting the crimes Assad and his gang of thugs are responsible for. There shouldn’t be any excuses what so ever from any member of the UN Security Council not to criticize this regime for committing crimes against humanity. Furthermore, we have other major event in neighborhood countries that are now starting to evolve as a result of the uncertainty that is taking place in Syria. And those who know me well know that I do not trust the majority of the members on the UN Security Council to address these acts of genocide as a major crime being carried out against humanity because they too are responsible for carrying out crimes against humanity in this 21st Century. I am probably more critical on this issue then many politicians are in Europe, and right next door to them what do we have: Russian belligerence not wanting to address the nuclear disarmament issues I have raised in the mist of all these global conflict now starting to emerge. The Europeans, the UN, and several Baltic nations must sooner or latter have to address the complacency and urgent need to address it as a major crime being carried against humanity by the Assad dictatorship. The economic fallout for not addressing it can be enormous, and of course who else would have to be bailed out because of it ------------- whose going to bail them out? On the one hand, we have corruption in Russia as a free enterprise, free money for QE2 to corrupt the moral of politicians of other nations as the American tries to artificially inflate global economic fundaments into “the debt floor black-hole of no return” to try force some of these nations to pay for the U.S war on terrorism, and I don’t think the EU general public as a whole would be up for that kind of nonsense given the fact that the economic condition is going to get a lot worst if we don’t get our humanity economic into perspective. But Syria on the other hand is now an economic melting pot ready to implode onto itself unlike anything anyone have ever seen. It’s going to hit all those in the middle east, but for both Russia and China the fall out will become noticeable as a major down turn in their economy because this two societies are autocratic and ruthless in their interpretation of applying international law and the economic out come of what will happen in Syria will be felt by those in China and Russia in ways they never could imagine. In other words, if we allow the degradation of the economic condition and hardship in Syria to continue to deteriorate what will happen in Syria is going to play out in what will happen in Russia and China. In other words, ignore the human right call for the need to internationally prosecute Assad and those around him then what we would windup seeing is a much more open radical criticism toward the west and those Arab nations that had given sanctuary to U.S. military present in the middle east as they start to confront a wave of criticism and hostility that might lead to even more conflicts. So this is what the American and Europeans are up against, ignore and global economic fundamental and all hell will start to play out a lot different than what many economist have forecasted. Denying the right of a multi-cultural Syrian population to voice their concerns as a united force against the dictatorship of Assad in the present of a world court hearing to prosecute Bashar al-Assad and member of his family and the political organized gangs of criminals he control would most likely windup becoming a turning point in how this conflict might turn into arm conflict, and that’s what the regime wants, is a civil war unless there is a united front against the regime, just like what the Americans wanted in Iraq a civil war to cover up their crime of declaring war which we all now realize has become a quagmire for both the Americans and Europeans because of their continuing failure not to have allowed for a UN police keeping force to have developed as I had already outlined in several Phylistic United Nations address, as a result of the United States “carpetation” it has created many of the security problems we see today, and we can also see this starting to play out in other parts of the world, there’s a need for creating UN regional bloc security formation as I have outlined and everyone know it here at the UN, so why the stonewalling. All this does is add up to immoral acts of inhumanity on the part of the United Nations Security Council. In other words, what we need is moral prudence on the part of the UNGA to signal the need to take decisive action as new terns of events will now start to play out over global economy fundamentals, especially if we are headed into another global recession because of the inaction on the part of some members at the UN. That’s the warning Phylistic Political Science is saying here: ignore my demand on the economic fundamental to international prosecute Assad or else the economic fallout would become inevitable counter productive and that goes for QE2. I want the 95% nuclear reduction model accepted do I make myself clear to everyone on the UN Security Council.
Thank you Bashar Asad
The French Government should praise the Syrian President for upholding the values of Liberté, égalité, fraternité and finally cracking down on the Islamic Extremists that are trying to replace the secular multi confessional state with an Islamic Emirate. Instead France sanctions the very individuals that are on the forefront of this battle against the Salafi menace!
syria and hama massacres
There should already be an indictment in ICC against Bashar al-Assad for Crimes against Humantity, Waging War on unarmed helpless citizenry- get Interpol (they have ICC/Crimes against Humanity authority) and selected law enforcement people go in and arrest this bloody despot before more innocent Syrian succumb to death in Hama. I'd like each and every country condemn Syria's Assad asap and held Assad accountable for his Crimes against Humanity.
Since the Oslo Attacks..
...many many more have been killed under the flag of the religion of peace.
Something is going really wrong in our world!
help us
I write to you from the inside Syria from the area called ALmidan in Damascus does not believe that these security men they are criminals and killing the human have very easy, believe me,what he saw your ambassador in Hama is the things that have been beautified it much more difficult type to you and tears shedin the eyes of sadness for these young people who are arrestedand brutally tortured and die have mercy came to him Please transmit to this message please
help
I can not cry In front of my children Because I am the source of power for them But I can no longer endurance It's hell It's hell I chose to write to you Perhaps my voice up to those who can help .... please
help us
Our people are being killed in Hama Please help us Security men and their aides enclosing on us Please it Unbearable so so much help help .......
Post new comment