Syrian troops stormed into the country’s third-largest city with armored personnel carriers and heavy machine guns, a rights activist said yesterday, as dialogue over possible government reforms moved into a second day in Damascus. At least two people were killed and 20 wounded in the attacks in Homs, activists said.
The clashes in Homs in central Syria suggest that the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad will not ease its four-month-old crackdown on the opposition despite proposing some political changes.
Syrian Vice President Farouk al-Sharaa on Sunday called for a transition to democracy in a country ruled for four decades by the authoritarian Assad family dynasty. However, the talks, which wrapped up yesterday, were boycotted by the main anti-government factions and are unlikely to produce any breakthroughs to immediately end the bloodshed.
Nevertheless, the two days of meetings were seen as a major concession by Assad’s regime after the most serious challenge to its rule. About 1,600 civilians and 350 members of the security forces have been killed since demonstrations began in March, activists say.
In Homs, an activist in the city said clashes occurred after security forces on Sunday killed the son of an anti-regime tribal leader. The unrest lasted until 5am yesterday.
Street lights were turned off when troops started entering neighborhoods, shooting with heavy machine guns on top of Russian-made armored personnel carriers, said the activist, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of government reprisals.
At least one person was killed and 20 wounded, the activist said.
Rami Abdul-Rahman, the -London-based director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, also said forces pushed into parts of Homs.
Also yesterday, the state-run news agency SANA reported that Assad named Anas Abdul-Razzaq Naem as the new governor of Hama, which has been out of government control since early last month.
Naem replaced Ahmed Khaled Abdul-Aziz, who was fired earlier this month as an apparent punishment for allowing protesters to stage a huge rally in the city earlier this month. The new governor is the secretary general of the Baath party branch at Hama and the head of the doctors’ association in the city.
Meanwhile, witness in Damascus said security guards at the French embassy fired into the air to drive back about 300 protesters taking part in two-pronged demonstrations outside the French and US embassies.
Hundreds of others were at the US embassy compound, which was attacked by pro-government protesters causing damage.
The protesters smashed windows and raised a Syrian flag on the compound yesterday witnesses said. They also wrote anti-US graffiti referring to the US ambassador as a “dog,”’ the witnesses said.
The protests were over visits by the US and French ambassadors last week to the opposition stronghold of Hama in central Syria.
A US official described the response of the Syrian authorities as “slow and insufficient.”
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