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BEIRUT Syrian security forces opened fire during one of the largest anti-government protests so far in the 10-week revolt, killing at least 27 people, as tens of thousands of Syrians poured into the streets after the Friday prayers, a human rights group said.
Security forces fired on at least two of the demonstrations demanding President Bashar Assad's ouster, renewed their assault on towns seen as key to the revolt against the regime's 40-year rule. The regime also cut Internet service across most of the country, activists said, a potentially dire blow for a movement that motivates people with graphic YouTube videos of the crackdown and loosely organizes protests on Facebook pages.
The Internet shutdown, if it continues, could also hamper the movement's ability to reach the world outside Syria, where the government has severely restricted the media and expelled foreign reporters, making it nearly impossible to independently verify what is happening there. Still many activists found alternate ways to log on and upload vidoes, such as satellite connections.
Rami Abdul-Rahman, director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said tens of thousands of people were protesting in Hama when security forces opened fire. He said the Hama protest was among the largest yet in the 10-week uprising against President Bashar Assad's regime.
Syria's state-run TV said three "saboteurs" were killed when police tried to stop them from setting a government building on fire in Hama. The Syrian government blames armed gangs and religious extremists for the violence.
As the Friday Muslim prayers ended, worshippers left the mosques and marched in cities, towns and villages. Syrian security forces dispersed some, mostly using batons, tear gas and water cannons and fired live ammunition in at least two locations in southern and northeastern towns.
Rights groups say more than 1,100 people have been killed since the revolt against Assad erupted in mid-March.
An eyewitness in Hama reached by The Associated Press said unprecedented numbers of people took part in Friday's protest in Hama.
He described a chaotic scene, with security forces firing tear gas and live ammunition and snipers shooting from the rooftops as people fled. He said there were around 150,000 demonstrators.
From a recent Robert Fisk article:Any reports of Syria's Kurds entering Turkey in large numbers?
Thats a good question, I have not heard anything about the Kurds in Syria and where they stand in this conflict, I am assuming they want Assad gone but who knows?
From a recent Robert Fisk article:Any reports of Syria's Kurds entering Turkey in large numbers?
Thats a good question, I have not heard anything about the Kurds in Syria and where they stand in this conflict, I am assuming they want Assad gone but who knows?
"Watching the hundreds of refugees pouring from Syria across the northern border of Lebanon, the Turkish government is now so fearful of a repeat of the great mass Iraqi Kurdish refugee tide that overwhelmed their border in the aftermath of the 1991 Gulf war that it has drawn up its own secret plans to prevent the Kurds of Syria moving in their thousands into the Kurdish areas of south-eastern Turkey.
"Turkish generals have thus prepared an operation that would send several battalions of Turkish troops into Syria itself to carve out a "safe area" for Syrian refugees inside Assad's caliphate.
"The Turks are prepared to advance well beyond the Syrian border town of Al Qamishli perhaps half way to Deir el-Zour (the old desert killing fields of the 1915 Armenian Holocaust, though speak it not) to provide a "safe haven" for those fleeing the slaughter in Syria's cities."
Who Cares in the Middle East What Obama Says? | Common Dreams
How do you think Assad or Bibi would feel about thousands of Turkish troops invading Syria?
BEIRUT Armed groups ambushed Syrian security forces in a tense northern city, killing 40 policemen and security forces in a region where the army has carried out deadly operations against anti-government protesters for days, Syrian state television said Monday.
Syria's military has been attacking the town of Jisr al-Shughour as part of a nationwide crackdown on an uprising calling for an end to President Bashar Assad's regime. Human rights groups say at least 35 people have been killed there since Saturday.
Communications appeared to have been cut to the area on Monday, but there have been unconfirmed reports in the past by residents and activists of Syrians fighting back against security forces.
Monday's state television report said the officers were ambushed as they responded to calls from residents for protection from the armed groups. It said 20 policemen were initially killed, and then the groups blew up a post office and killed a number of other security forces.
The report said the armed groups were hiding in homes and firing at soldiers and civilians alike, using residents as human shields in an ongoing shootout.
The TV reports could not be independently confirmed. The Syrian government has severely restricted the media and expelled foreign reporters, making it nearly impossible to independently verify events.
Details of the operations in Jisr al-Shughour and nearby Khan Sheikhoun have been sketchy and attempts to reach residents of the town were unsuccessful.
Human rights groups say more than 1,200 people have died in the brutal crackdown against anti-government protesters since March.
CAIRO Syrias state news agency reported Monday that armed gangs had killed 120 police, security personnel and civilians in multiple attacks in a northwestern town, and that residents were pleading for the army to intervene. The reports could not be independently verified, but regardless of whether the numbers are inflated, they appear likely to presage an even harsher crackdown on antigovernment protesters.
The reported number of dead ballooned over the course of the day from 28 to 40 to 80 security, then another 40 civilians as state media described escalating violence in the town of Jisr al-Shughour by the unspecified armed fighters, including an ambush of police, the bombing of a post office and gunfire from rooftops.
By the end of the day, state media said police and security forces were clashing with hundreds of armed men who had taken control of some areas of the town. But the state broadcaster showed no images from the town, despite scrolling text on Syrian television that spoke of a massacre.
Protesters could not be immediately reached in the area, but opposition activists repudiated any suggestion that antigovernment protesters had mounted such attacks. I have seen no evidence of organized violence by protesters against the regime, said Wissam Tarif, a Syrian human rights activist currently outside the country. Protesters do not have weapons they could even use against tanks and helicopters, which the regime is using.
Syria has been gripped by a popular uprising against four decades of iron-fisted rule by the Assad family since mid-March, but the government has blamed the unrest on what it calls Islamic extremists and foreign conspirators bent on destroying the country and its fragile balance of ethnic groups and religious denominations. However, even supporters of the government have said the unrest in Syria is far too widespread to validate the official explanation.
Fears of anti-government retaliation have grown, but no reports have suggested such high tolls before.
The reports came a day after demonstrators and rights activists said Syrian military forces using helicopter gunships and armored cars mounted with machine guns had killed at least 25 people in the town over the weekend. At least 13 others died in nearby villages.
Syrian state media said police officers and security personnel heading to Jisr al-Shughour were ambushed by the armed gangs. In what appeared to be a separate attack, eight guards in the town were reportedly killed when pipe bombs exploded in a post office.
Later, state media said that at least 37 people were killed in a security station where residents had taken shelter from the armed gangs. The reports said the gangs were firing from rooftops and behind barricades.
Even before the reports of violence, security forces appeared to redeploy on Sunday from other towns to join the harsh crackdown in the northern province of Idlib in a swift effort to put down the latest flare-up in the uprising against the government of President Bashar al-Assad. The number of protesters in Idlib swelled in recent weeks, said Mr. Tarif, the rights activist.
Government tanks were reported to have pulled back slightly from the city of Hama on Sunday, a day after they were sent in to confront mourners for the 65 protesters killed Friday. The city was the site of a 1982 massacre when security forces commanded by President Hafez al-Assad, the current presidents father, bombarded it in a siege that killed at least 10,000 people.
The uprising began in the southern town of Daraa and quickly spread, after residents there rose up against the Assad regime following the arrest and torture of a group of school children accused of spray painting anti-government graffiti on a school house wall. The children, aged eight to fifteen, were badly beaten and had their fingernails pulled out, activists said.
(Reuters) - Syrians fled a restive town toward the Turkish border, fearing bloodshed as troops with tanks approached, under orders to hit back after the government accused armed bands there of killing scores of its security men.
Though accounts of days of killing in Jisr al-Shughour ranged from an official version of gunmen ambushing troops to residents' reports of an army mutiny, it triggered international alarm that violence may enter a new and bloodier phase after three months of popular unrest that has left over 1,000 dead.
France and Britain, allies in the war against Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, took a lead in pushing U.N. moves against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. But Russia, citing NATO's inconclusive bombing of Tripoli, said it would veto intervention against Syria in the United Nations Security Council.
French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe, at U.N. headquarters in New York, said it was "a question of days, maybe hours" before the Council voted on a resolution condemning Syria. A draft circulated last month does not propose military intervention.
At Jisr al-Shughour, home to tens of thousands of people, residents said they were taking cover and bracing for attacks.
"The army is taking up position around Jisr al-Shughour," one anti-government activist told Reuters by telephone, saying residents have seen troops approaching the northeastern town from Aleppo, Syria's second city, and from Latakia on the coast.
If the Turks go into Syria all hell is going to break loose.
BEIRUT -- A Syrian-American lesbian blogger known for her frank posts about her sexuality and her open criticism of President Bashar Assad's autocratic rule was detained after weeks on the run in the Syrian capital, her cousin and an activist said Tuesday.
Amina Arraf wrote a blog called "A Gay Girl in Damascus," a mixture of erotic prose and updates about Syria's uprising, including her participation in anti-regime protests.
Her cousin, Rania Ismail, said Arraf was last seen Monday being bundled into a car by three men in civilian clothes. The car, Ismail wrote in a post on her cousin's blog, had sticker depicting Assad's late brother Basel, according to a friend who was nearby and saw what happened.
Ismail said Arraf was detained as she and the friend were on their way "to meet a person involved" with the Local Coordination Committee, an activist group which helps organize and document the protests calling for an end to the Assad regime.
An activist with the Local Coordination Committees also said Arraf was taken but gave no details.
"We are hoping she is simply in jail and nothing worse has happened to her," Ismail wrote. She added that Arraf had previously sent her texts to post should something happen to her, but she was holding off in hopes of hearing further word from her cousin.
The day before she was detained, Arraf wrote: "I am complex, I am many things; I am an Arab, I am Syrian, I am a woman, I am queer, I am Muslim, I am binational, I am tall, I am too thin; my sect is Sunni, my clan is Omari, my tribe is Quraysh, my city is Damascus," she wrote in A Gay Girl in Damascus a day before being detained.
"I am also a Virginian. I was born on an afternoon in a hospital in sight of where Woodrow Wilson entered the world, where streets are named for country stars."
Since the uprising against Assad began in mid-March, a government crackdown has left about 1,300 people dead and more than 10,000 detained, according to human rights groups. Several activists who were briefly detained during the revolt said they were tortured, humiliated and forced to sign pledges to avoid anti-regime activities.
In one post, Arraf wrote about taking part in a Damascus protest that was broken up by security forces.
"Busloads of secret police armed with batons - thousands of them - met us around Abbasiyeen Square and began to assault the edges of the crowd," she wrote. "Teargas was lobbed at us. I saw people vomiting from the gas as I covered my own mouth and nose and my eyes burned. ... We broke and were scattered."
But she gained prominence after writing on April 26 about two plainclothes security agents who came to her home to detain her and were argued into leaving by her father. Soon afterward, Arraf and her father went into hiding, changing location frequently in Damascus, the Syrian capital.
Syrians flee to Turkey, fearing retribution
Assad's regime has vowed to avenge the death of 120 security personnel in Jisr al-Shughur, located near the Turkish border. The UN Security Council votes today on a resolution condemning Syria.
Syria's President Bashar al-Assad has launched a vicious military assault on antigovernment elements in recent months, causing 1,300 deaths according to rights groups, and courting a UN Security Council condemnation that will come to a vote today.
A group of Syrians head towards Turkey from inside Syria as they wait for the authorization to cross the border near Turkish village of Guvecci in Hatay province, Turkey, on June 8.
The reported disappearance of a gay Syrian-American blogger has attracted skepticism after a London woman claimed the photos published by news organizations worldwide are of her, not of the blogger, and that the blogger stole her identity a year ago.
Amina Arraf, known for her criticism of Syrian President Bashar Assad and her open posts about sexuality on a blog called "A Gay Girl in Damascus," was last seen Monday evening being forced into a car in Syria's capital, her cousin, Rania Ismail, said. News sites, including msnbc.com , reported the 36-year-old writer's disappearance on Tuesday, along with a photo of her.
On Wednesday, a London publicist said photos circulating are actually of Jelena Lecic, a Croatian woman who works as an administrator at the Royal College of Physicians in London. Lecic believes her identity has been used before by Arraf.
Jelena Lenic, who lives in London, said her photo was used alongside stories about a missing Syrian blogger. The blogger has previously claimed photos of Lenic were of her, she said. "Just over a year ago, a friend called Jelena up and said, 'Do you have another identity up on Facebook? Because there's someone else who has your pictures up but not your name," publicist Julius Just told msnbc.com. "She and her friend complained, and Facebook removed it, and she believed it was the end of the matter."
But when news of Arraf's disappearance broke, Just said Lecic saw her photo alongside the story in London's Guardian newspaper. It was one of the same photos her friend had spotted on Facebook a year ago under a different profile name: Amina Abdalla Arraf.
Lecic called The Guardian to request the photo be taken down, only to find it replaced with another photo of her.
I pray that Amina is safely returned to her family but I want to make it quite clear that I am not her despite my photographs being attached to this story, Lecic said in a press release.
As reports mount of defections in the Syrian military and the government staggers from the killing of soldiers and police officers in a northern city this week, President Bashar al-Assad may turn increasingly to his brother, Maher, whose elite units in a demoralized army could prove decisive to his governments survival, activists and analysts say.
Maher al-Assad heads the Syrian Armys elite Fourth Division and Republican Guard, while wielding great influence in Syrias powerful intelligence services, analysts say. In the nearly three-month uprising, he has emerged as a lightning rod of dissent over his perceived role in the ferocious crackdown that has led to the deaths of 1,300 people, by activists count, and the arrests of more than 10,000.
To many, Maher al-Assads power has underscored the narrow circle his brother presides over a circle that relies on connections of clan, family and friendship, and that has proved far less tested by crisis than the ruling elite their father cultivated over three decades.
The presidents brother is so much at the center of that clique that many Syrians fervently believe he is the unidentified man who is shown taking potshots at demonstrators in a sensational video now in wide circulation.
Though neither the video nor the gunmans identity could be independently verified, the fact that so many Syrians believe it to be he is a telling insight into the power and fear he has cultivated.
According to Bassam Bitar, a former Syrian diplomat who now lives in exile in Virginia, Maher al-Assads control of Syrias security apparatus makes him first in command, not second in command.
Since childhood, Bashar al-Assad has had a reputation in his family as the weaker, more hesitant personality, Mr. Bitar said.
Sometimes I think Bashar means it about reform, Mr. Bitar said. But his brother wont take it.
In many ways, Mr. Bitar said, the relationship between President Assad and his younger brother mirrors the relationship of their father, Hafez al-Assad, with his younger brother Rifaat, who served as the government enforcer and was the architect of the 1982 Hama massacre, in which at least 10,000 people were killed.
If you look back at the uprising from 79 to 82, Rifaat was the nasty guy, the killer, Mr. Bitar said. And now history repeats itself, and Maher is a nasty guy.
The bloody events this week seemed to have marked a decisive moment in an uprising that has posed the gravest challenge to the familys 41-year rule.
On Monday, the government claimed that 120 soldiers and police officers had been killed in a town called Jisr al-Shoughour by armed gangs a common euphemism for protesters. Some residents and opposition activists claimed some of the soldiers had been killed by their colleagues for defecting, though it was impossible to verify either account.
If the residents accounts are true, it would mark an extraordinary fissure in a government that has so far maintained the relative unity of the armed forces and the state in the face of the uprising. Though lower-level defections have been reported for weeks, nothing has approached the level of Mondays bloodshed in Jisr al-Shoughour.
Now there are clashes between the soldiers on one side and security men and young people on the other, said Omar, 28, a resident there reached by phone on Monday night. Tens of soldiers began to stand with civilian protesters and families. The civilians are presenting first aid to some soldiers who get shot by the secret police.
KARBEYAZ, Turkey The Turkish government said Thursday that it was planning to build a second camp to house Syrian refugees, after 1,050 more people crossed the border over the last 24 hours, the semiofficial Anatolian Agency reported, and a top United Nations official appealed to Damascus to stop the bloodshed that has led people to flee.
In Geneva, Navi Pillay, the United Nations high commissioner for human rights, called on Syria to stop the assault on its own people.
It is utterly deplorable for any government to attempt to bludgeon its population into submission, using tanks, artillery and snipers, Ms. Pillay said in a statement. I urge the government to halt this assault on its own peoples most fundamental human rights.
Ms. Pillay said reports suggested that more than 1,100 had been killed, and 10,000 or more detained.
Since violent clashes broke out last weekend in Jisr al-Shoughour, a northern Syrian town close to this border, more Syrians have been fleeing into Turkey, some bearing tales of black-clad gunmen opening fire on protesters without warning. Many other Syrians, camped out in scrubby fields within sight of the Turkish border, are ready to follow them at the first sign that security forces are pursuing them, those who have crossed say.
Some preferred to seek shelter at the refugee camp in Yayladag, Turkey.
It is really very bad in Jisr al-Shoughour, said a man who looked to be in his 50s. There are many security forces, heavy army, tanks they are all around. As he spoke near the fence, a Turkish police patrol asked him to move inside.
There are more coming here, it is not possible to stay there, he said, walking away. They are killing everyone, the children around him added.
Speaking Thursday on Turkish radio, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan expressed his concern about the growing violence on Turkeys 500-mile border with Syria, but sought to reassure the world that the crossings would remain open, NTV, a private television station, reported. It is impossible for us to close down the border, Mr. Erdogan said.
He added that he had spoken with the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, three days ago, and that Turkey was following events in Syria with concern.
Syrians began crossing into Turkey after the protests against Mr. Assads rule began in April. Many have taken advantage of a porous border and the relaxed border controls put in place last year. Some have gradually returned to Syria on their own; Turkish officials have also provided assistance to nearly 260 people sheltered in a tent city less than 40 miles from Hatay, in Turkeys southeast.
Even Syrian citizens who had entered Turkey legally were not being granted access to search for their friends and relatives.
I am in charge of the security of these people here, how can I be sure that these Syrians who are trying to get in are not from Syrian intelligence? a senior policeman in civil outfit asked, behind the bars at the main entrance of the Yayladag camp.
Around the corner, towards the back of the compound, dozens of people children, women and men were wandering around trees and tents. Children played on swings in a small outdoor playground.
Residents of nearby villages said that there are thousands camping in Syria just over the borderline, and that many had penetrated through several unofficial crossings. Many of the villages were split between the two countries by borders drawn in the 1920s.
The military police is now registering around 55 people who have crossed into my land, which is basically an arm length away from Syria, said Siddik Donmezer, 42, the owner of a small farm. Describing the situation just over the border in Jisr al-Shoughour, he said, The regime security forces cut their electricity and randomly storm into their homes in search of youngsters, and once they are taken you never hear back from them. He said that his cousin, who lives in the Syrian town, describe tanks rolling in the streets.
Three civilians were shot dead on Tuesday by Syrian security forces at Rastan in the center of the country and in the southern region of Daraa, a rights activist said on condition of anonymity.
"Ibrahim Salhum was killed today at Rastan" near the city of Homs, as the military attempted to quell anti-regime protest there for the third straight day, the activist said.
He added that at Hirak, a town in the flashpoint southern province of Daraa, two people were shot dead overnight and at dawn as "security forces entered Hirak and carried out search operations."
Meanwhile, state television reported that an investigation will be launched into the death of a 13-year-old Syrian boy who was allegedly tortured and killed by security forces in Daraa
This boy was so tortured and disfigured that his father passed out when he saw the boy.
Syria to Probe 'Torture, Murder' of 13-Years-Old Boy as 3 Dead in Crackdown - Naharnet
Three civilians were shot dead on Tuesday by Syrian security forces at Rastan in the center of the country and in the southern region of Daraa, a rights activist said on condition of anonymity.
"Ibrahim Salhum was killed today at Rastan" near the city of Homs, as the military attempted to quell anti-regime protest there for the third straight day, the activist said.
He added that at Hirak, a town in the flashpoint southern province of Daraa, two people were shot dead overnight and at dawn as "security forces entered Hirak and carried out search operations."
Meanwhile, state television reported that an investigation will be launched into the death of a 13-year-old Syrian boy who was allegedly tortured and killed by security forces in Daraa
Assad has denied Kurds citizenships for decades and now they go to Iraq beg Maliki to convince Kurdistan president Barzani to talk to the Kurds so they do not to join demonstrations?
Assad is a serial killer in a leaders clothing.
I really don't think the Arabs want Israel to go anywhere, if the Jews left who would they use for their boogeyman when things don't go their way? The Jews are blamed for earthquakes, the weather, and for these uprisings.
Bashar Assad is the Syrian version of John Wayne Gacey.
John Wayne Gacy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
I really don't think the Arabs want Israel to go anywhere, if the Jews left who would they use for their boogeyman when things don't go their way? The Jews are blamed for earthquakes, the weather, and for these uprisings.
You forgot to mention those vicious 'spy sharks' Israel sent to spy on the muslims, too!
I really don't think the Arabs want Israel to go anywhere, if the Jews left who would they use for their bogeyman when things don't go their way? The Jews are blamed for earthquakes, the weather, and for these uprisings.
You forgot to mention those vicious 'spy sharks' Israel sent to spy on the Muslims, too!
I really don't think the Arabs want Israel to go anywhere, if the Jews left who would they use for their bogeyman when things don't go their way? The Jews are blamed for earthquakes, the weather, and for these uprisings.
You forgot to mention those vicious 'spy sharks' Israel sent to spy on the Muslims, too!
This is what happens when a people marry their first cousins and first nieces. Yes, it is allowed to marry and produce children with one's brother's daughter in Islam.
