12 killed in Syrian port city

State-run news agency says armed gangs attacked neighbourhoods in Latakia as protests against Bashar Assad regime continue The Syrian government has said 12 people were killed in violence in the port city of Latakia, which has been rocked by protests and unrest, yesterday. The country’s state-run news agency said unknown armed gangs had attacked neighbourhoods, firing guns from rooftops. Anti-government protesters, meanwhile, accused government forces – which were deployed in Latakia yesterday – of opening fire on them. Activists said some demonstrators burned tyres, attacked businesses and set fire to an office of the ruling Ba’ath party. Dozens of people have been killed in a number of Syrian cities after protests against President Bashar al-Assad’s regime flared up more than a week ago. Ten people, including members of the security forces, residents and two members of “armed elements” died in the Latakia violence, the state-run news agency said, adding that at least two people were killed by rooftop snipers. Around 200 others, mostly members of the security forces, were reported to have been injured. Ammar Qurabi, an exile in Egypt who heads Syria’s National Organisation for Human Rights, told the Associated Press that dozens of people had protested in Latakia before attacking the Ba’ath party’s offices in the city. Demonstrators also attacked a police station and the Ba’ath party offices in the town of Tafas, six miles (10km) north of the southern border city of Daraa, the epicentre of the anti-government protests. An activist in Daraa told AP that up 1,200 people were still holding a silent sit-in the al-Omari mosque. He said the army and police were surrounding the area in a standoff with protesters, but reported no violence. “I think they will storm our sit-in very soon,” he added. The spread of violence to ethnically mixed Latakia is significant, and Assad’s government of minority Alawite Muslims blamed a prominent Sunni cleric in Qatar for inciting unrest. Bouthaina Shaaban, a presidential adviser, said Qatar-based Sheik Youssef al-Qaradawi had incited Sunnis to revolt with a sermon in Doha on Friday. Al-Qaradawi, who has millions of followers around the world and is seen as one of most influential voices in Sunni Islam, praised the Syrian uprising and criticised the regime. Shabaan said those words were responsible for the unrest in Latakia, adding: “There was nothing [in Latakia] before Qaradawi’s sermon on Friday,” she told reporters in Damascus. “Qaradawi’s words were a clear and honest invitation for sectarian strife.” Sectarian divisions are a sensitive topic in Syria, where Assad has used increased economic freedom and prosperity to win the allegiance of the prosperous Sunni Muslim merchant classes while punishing dissenters with arrest and imprisonment. Assad has placed his fellow Alawites, adherents of a mystical offshoot of Shia Islam, into most positions of power in Syria. He has built a close relationship with Iran, allowing it to extend its influence into Lebanon, where it provides money and weapons to Hezbollah militants. Syria Middle East Arab and Middle East unrest Bashar Al-Assad guardian.co.uk

Posted by on March 27, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.