Government troops backed by tanks raided houses in Hama yesterday, searching for activists behind five months of protest against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, residents said.
The raids took place a day after security forces killed at least four people among crowds of demonstrators pouring out of mosques after marking the end of Ramadan, the Muslim holy month in which Assad intensified a military crackdown on protests.
Troops swept through several cities during Ramadan, killing scores of people and triggering Western sanctions and Arab criticism, without crushing the unrest in which the UN says 2,000 civilians have been killed.
The protesters have also failed to unseat Assad, but they have been encouraged by the fall of Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi and rising international pressure on Syria, including a planned EU embargo on the oil industry, which would disrupt vital inflows of foreign currency at Assad’s disposal.
US President Barack Obama’s administration, which has already imposed sanctions on Syria’s oil industry and a state-owned bank, froze the US assets of Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem and two other officials on Tuesday.
Hama has seen some of the biggest protests against 41 years of Assad family rule and was the first city assaulted during Ramadan. Authorities said the army withdrew by the middle of last month, but residents reported a significant military presence yesterday.
“Several light tanks and tens of ... buses parked at al-Hadid bridge at the eastern entrance of Hama. Hundreds of troops then went on foot into al-Qusour and Hamidiya neighborhoods. The sound of gunfire is being heard,” Abdelrahman, a local activist, said by telephone.
“These neighborhoods have been among the most active in staging protests,” he added.
Another resident said Toyota pick-up trucks mounted with machine guns and buses full of troops also assembled overnight near al-Dahiriya District at the northern entrance of Hama, 205km north of the capital, Damascus.
“The people want the execution of the president,” a YouTube video showed dozens of protesters chanting in Hamidiya after night prayers, shortly before the raid on the district.
Most foreign media were expelled from Syria after the uprising began in March, making it hard to verify reports.
State television aired an audio recording on Tuesday of what it said were two terrorists who revealed “a full agenda of provocation and targeting police and army camps and terrorizing peaceful citizens in the name of freedom and non-violence.”
In the northwestern province of Idlib on the border with Turkey, troops shot dead one villager, Hazem al-Shihadi, at a checkpoint overnight near the town of Kfaruma, where army defections have increased, activists said.
About 7,000 Syrian refugees, most of whom had fled army assaults on their towns and villages in Idlib, are housed in six camps in Turkey’s Hatay province across the border, the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Network said in a statement.
Demonstrations broke out across Syria on Tuesday after prayers to mark the end of Ramadan, notably in Damascus suburbs, the city of Homs, 165km to the north, and Idlib, activists and residents said.
They said security forces shot dead four people, including a 13-year-old boy, in the southern Deraa Province.
“The people want the downfall of the president,” protesters shouted in the Damascus suburb of Harasta, where activists said dozens of soldiers defected at the weekend after refusing to shoot at the crowds.
Residents and activists have reported a rising number of defections among Syrian armed forces.
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