Syrian forces kill 13 as protests erupt nationwide

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Syria shrugged off warnings from neighboring Turkey, the United States and other countries to cease military operations against unarmed civilians, killing at least 13 people Friday as protests erupted countrywide despite the growing security crackdown, according to accounts from witnesses and activists.

Among the dead were some killed in the eastern town of Dair Alzour by security forces who opened fire when worshipers emerged from Friday prayers, according to a resident reached by telephone. The city, an opposition stronghold near the Iraq border, has been under attack by Syrian forces for the past week.

“Directly after they came out of the mosques the security forces rushed toward the demonstrators and shot live ammunition at them,” said the resident, who would identify himself only by his first name of Abdullah. Security forces had burned bakeries in the town since beginning their offensive a week ago, forcing civilians to roam wide distances in search of bread, the resident said. He said three people had been killed in Friday’s violence in the town.

In Khan Sheikhon near the Turkish border, tanks and troops stormed the town at dawn, killing a pregnant woman, according to the Local Coordination Committees, a coalition of Syrian opposition groups. The group detailed other alleged deadly attacks on civilians Friday in the Damascus suburb of Saqba, where a man was reportedly shot and killed in a protest that followed dawn prayers, and in the cities of Aleppo, Hama, Homs and elsewhere.

In Aleppo, the second-largest city and a center of support for Syrian President Bashar Assad, protesters and security forces clashed. Video posted on the Internet showed young men running through a poor district as bursts of gunfire sounded.

Friday’s biggest protests appeared to have been in the Damascus suburbs and in the coastal city of Latakia, where thousands of protesters unfurled a huge Syrian flag.

Fridays have been the main day of protests throughout the Arab revolutions. Friday’s demonstrations posed a test for Assad following increasingly tough warnings from the international community. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Thursday that she was pushing other countries, particularly China and India, to join in before the United States would call for Assad to step down.

Turkey, Syria’s more powerful and wealthier neighbor, was likely to regard the violence, especially that along its border, as an affront.

Turkey’s foreign minister traveled to Damascus this week to press Assad to stop attacks, and Turkish officials had said their government would be closely watching Syria’s actions in coming days. Turkey’s diplomatic move ”would actually qualify as an ultimatum … for Assad to reexamine his stance and his policy,” Sinan Ulgen, an analyst and former Turkish diplomat, said by telephone Friday.

Turkey’s Zaman newspaper reported that the Turkish military, apparently alarmed by the Syrian raids near the Turkish border, had called up recently retired officers and sent many to provinces along the frontier with Syria.

The border area has been the scene of repeated offensives that Turkey says have pushed more than 7,000 Syrians into refugee camps just inside Turkey. Syrian forces stormed the town of Saraqbe near the border on Thursday, and killed 11 people in a raid on a western town near Lebanon.

Syria’s military is blocking roads leading to Turkey, preventing new refugee flows, Omar Miqdad, a Syrian activist who has fled to Turkey, said by telephone.

LAT

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15 responses to “Syrian forces kill 13 as protests erupt nationwide”

  1. antar2011 Avatar
    antar2011

    and the world is still giving that butcher a chance…life is cruel wallah!

    1. Patience2 Avatar
      Patience2

      Well, sad though it may seem, the ‘World’ over which you(and I) have absolutely NO control seems to feel that the Assad regime(if properly pacified) offers the most cost effective way of minimizing the likelihood of what(to THEM) would be ‘serious disruptions’ to the flow of all material goods(liquid and solid) as well as friendly interfaces to this(and other local) governments.  In other words, things are ‘shaky’ enough, why rock the boat by introducing actual freedom??  I think ‘they’ believe Assad is better than change!

      1. antar2011 Avatar
        antar2011

        hear hear!

      2. 5thDrawer Avatar
        5thDrawer

        ‘Introducing Freedom’ is something all of you will decry and storm about if it comes from the UN – which you seem to feel is American. One minute people ask Americans to ‘do something’, and then if they do people dump on them. Western Europe now experiences that in action against Daffy Qaddafi … which is really very little action.
          No-one likes what Assad is doing … but you need to have a real war to stop him, and half the country will be dead when it ends. Maybe he will manage to do that too … before Syrian people who wish for that ‘freedom to choose’ can finally do him in … but it is not going to be those ‘bad western businessmen’ with their ‘bad western thinking’ who will do it for them.
         Syrian people must decide it. And the rest of us watching the horror will simply sit and complain.
        We can wait for the first tank shells to begin to fall on the tent cities in Turkey. Then you might see a war, instead of a killing field. But we can’t count on that either … he only taunts from his side of the border saying: “see what I can do to MY slaves?”
        Freedom has never been cheaply won. And in this part of the world, it seems, most do not wish for it.

        1. Spot on! People are such hypocrites.

  2.  Avatar
    Anonymous

    and the world is still giving that butcher a chance…life is cruel wallah!

    1.  Avatar
      Anonymous

      Well, sad though it may seem, the ‘World’ over which you(and I) have absolutely NO control seems to feel that the Assad regime(if properly pacified) offers the most cost effective way of minimizing the likelihood of what(to THEM) would be ‘serious disruptions’ to the flow of all material goods(liquid and solid) as well as friendly interfaces to this(and other local) governments.  In other words, things are ‘shaky’ enough, why rock the boat by introducing actual freedom??  I think ‘they’ believe Assad is better than change!

      1.  Avatar
        Anonymous

        hear hear!

      2.  Avatar
        Anonymous

        ‘Introducing Freedom’ is something all of you will decry and storm about if it comes from the UN – which you seem to feel is American. One minute people ask Americans to ‘do something’, and then if they do people dump on them. Western Europe now experiences that in action against Daffy Qaddafi … which is really very little action.
          No-one likes what Assad is doing … but you need to have a real war to stop him, and half the country will be dead when it ends. Maybe he will manage to do that too … before Syrian people who wish for that ‘freedom to choose’ can finally do him in … but it is not going to be those ‘bad western businessmen’ with their ‘bad western thinking’ who will do it for them.
         Syrian people must decide it. And the rest of us watching the horror will simply sit and complain.
        We can wait for the first tank shells to begin to fall on the tent cities in Turkey. Then you might see a war, instead of a killing field. But we can’t count on that either … he only taunts from his side of the border saying: “see what I can do to MY slaves?”
        Freedom has never been cheaply won. And in this part of the world, it seems, most do not wish for it.

        1. Spot on! People are such hypocrites.

    2.  Avatar
      Anonymous

      Well, sad though it may seem, the ‘World’ over which you(and I) have absolutely NO control seems to feel that the Assad regime(if properly pacified) offers the most cost effective way of minimizing the likelihood of what(to THEM) would be ‘serious disruptions’ to the flow of all material goods(liquid and solid) as well as friendly interfaces to this(and other local) governments.  In other words, things are ‘shaky’ enough, why rock the boat by introducing actual freedom??  I think ‘they’ believe Assad is better than change!

  3. libnan1 Avatar

    Observations:

    OTV news is the best – hot looking announcer. Great news conference for Basil, he makes sense about the 700 meg.
    New TV is Ok – what an announcer (Ahmad). Her poor boyfriend or husband, she looks like horse.
    nbn, not bad – cute announcer. I don’t know who support this channel. 

    1. 5thDrawer Avatar
      5thDrawer

      Looks like an ‘Independant’ licenced by ….

      Orascom TV, better known as OTV, is an Egyptin Television Channel broadcast on the Nilesat. OTV is owned by Orascom. OTV was launched on January 31, 2007 at 18:30 p.m. Cairo Time.OTV is specialized in broadcasting international TV shows, movies.OTV Shows are 24, Exteme Makeover, Home Edition, An Hour With Samir Ghanem and OthersOTV is also famous with its 5 – 10 minute diverse reports which are featured throughout the day and in a program called “Ma’sa’ak Sokar” “مسائك سكر” which literally means “Your Evening Is Sugar”. Reports could range from operatic events like Christmas carols to the breeding of sheep.

  4.  Avatar
    Anonymous

    Observations:

    OTV news is the best – hot looking announcer. Great news conference for Basil, he makes sense about the 700 meg.
    New TV is Ok – what an announcer (Ahmad). Her poor boyfriend or husband, she looks like horse.
    nbn, not bad – cute announcer. I don’t know who support this channel. 

    1.  Avatar
      Anonymous

      Looks like an ‘Independant’ licenced by ….

      Orascom TV, better known as OTV, is an Egyptin Television Channel broadcast on the Nilesat. OTV is owned by Orascom. OTV was launched on January 31, 2007 at 18:30 p.m. Cairo Time.OTV is specialized in broadcasting international TV shows, movies.OTV Shows are 24, Exteme Makeover, Home Edition, An Hour With Samir Ghanem and OthersOTV is also famous with its 5 – 10 minute diverse reports which are featured throughout the day and in a program called “Ma’sa’ak Sokar” “مسائك سكر” which literally means “Your Evening Is Sugar”. Reports could range from operatic events like Christmas carols to the breeding of sheep.

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