| Visitors Now: | |
| Total Visits: | |
| Total Stories: |
| Story Views | |
| Now: | |
| Last Hour: | |
| Last 24 Hours: | |
| Total: | |
Syrian security forces kill 18 in new assaults
The Syrian army shelled residential areas and unleashed security forces Wednesday in an intensified push to crush the uprising against authoritarian President Bashar Assad, killing an 8-year-old boy and at least 17 others, a human rights group said.
The lethal shelling evoked bitter memories of the regime's legacy of brutally suppressing dissent under Assad's father, Hafez. In 1982, Hafez Assad crushed a Sunni uprising by shelling the town of Hama, killing 10,000 to 25,000 people, according to Amnesty International estimates.
Ammar Qurabi, head of the National Organization for Human Rights in Syria, said 13 people were killed Wednesday in tank shelling on al-Haraa village outside Daraa, the southern city where the uprising began in mid-March. Five others were killed in the central city of Homs — most of them in shelling, he said. Several were killed by gunfire.
More than 770 people have been killed in the current crackdown on anti-government unrest and thousands have been detained, with about 9,000 still in custody, Qurabi said.
Residents reported heavy tank fire and gunfire Wednesday in at least three residential neighborhoods in the besieged city of Homs, which has seen some of the largest anti-government demonstrations during the seven-week-long uprising.
"There were loud explosions and gunfire from automatic rifles throughout the night and until this morning," a resident told The Associated Press by telephone, asking that his name not be used for fear of government reprisals. "The area is totally besieged. We are being shelled."
Few details were leaking out of the Daraa area and calls were not going through. The government has been cutting off phone and electric services to try to isolate restive areas.
