Syrian President Bashar Assad’s soldiers secretly razed homes in the city of Hama, north of Damascus, amid his regime’s fears that the violent attempts to suppress the uprising might spell an all-out revolution.
Video: Assad’s troops shoot youth on street in Homs in central Syria.
Tens of thousands of residents poured out in Hama to demonstrate for freedom. Forces which earlier had withdrawn to surround the city swooped down and beat and arrested hundreds of activists. Assad on Friday sacked the governor of Hama on charges that he was too lax in dealing with protesters.
The death toll in the three-month-old protest movement has reached 1,300-1,600, according to different estimates, and at least 20,000 people have been detained or have disappeared.” Half of them have allegedly been released.
Human Rights Watch reported Saturday that the government crackdown in Homs, a city in central Syria and a center of anti-regime activity, included vandalism of homes by plainclothes police.
The latest round of violence virtually has erased memories of Assad’s public leniency last week, when his government allowed 200 activists to meet at a Damascus hotel without interference by the police or army. Events on Monday indicated that Assad has no intention of letting up, but the protest movement also appears to gaining even more steam.
Tanks were deployed Sunday and Monday at the entrance to Hama, home to 400,000 Syrians while arrests and shootings continued in half a dozen other cities, as well as a suburb of Damascus.