Assad’s forces pound Syrian port city of Latakia

Anti-government activists say gunboats and armoured vehicles have fired on Sunni-majority city, killing at least 19 people At least 19 people were shot dead in the Syrian port city of Latakia on Sunday morning as the Assad regime’s aggressive military campaign to quell protests during the holy month of Ramadan continued. Machine guns were fired from at least one ship and several armoured vehicles at the neighbourhood of Ramel, according to local residents and activists. “Tanks and armoured cars entered as far as possible into the narrow streets and they started to use machine guns to fire at some houses,” said Amer al-Sadeq, a pseudonym for a representative of the Syrian Revolution Co-ordinators Union. Another local activist network, the Local Co-ordination Committees, posted amateur footage on its Facebook page showing a boat apparently patrolling the Latakia coastline, although its location could not be confirmed. Local residents say the latest incidents began on Saturday when armed vehicles approached the neighbourhood and opened fire, activists said. The death toll across Syria has escalated during the first half of Ramadan, bringing the total to around 2,000 people since the uprising began five months ago. A resident from Latakia, who identified himself only as Ahmad, said women and children fled the area on Saturday night as gunfire started and two people were shot dead. He said mosques called on regime forces not to shoot, to no avail, and that the assault continued on Sunday morning. Ahmad said only one nurse was currently operating in the area, where more than 50 people required treatment, after doctors from the local medical clinic were arrested two months ago. There have been large and persistent protests in the Ramel neighbourhood, in the south of Latakia on Syria’s small stretch of coastline. The Sunni-majority city is in the heartland of the Alawite sect, to which President Bashar al-Assad belongs, and is home to religiously diverse neighbourhoods. In March when protesters took to the streets for a sit-in protest against the crackdown in the opposition hub of Deraa, presidential adviser Buthaina Shaaban attributed the unrest to sectarian strife, encouraged by a sermon by Qatar-based cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi. Since then residents say the shabiha , a gang of former smugglers loyal to the Assad family, and security forces have sought to pin down areas and scare people about the danger of sectarian clashes. Over the past five months residents have spoken of Sunni neighbourhoods being warned of attacks by Alawites and Alawite neighbourhoods being warned of a Sunni backlash if the regime falls. Activists say sectarianism is not playing a part and a handful of defections are fuelling continuing clashes. Ahmad said a small number of soldiers had defected in the area to join the fightback against the regime. “Now there is a battle between defected soldiers and the others,” he said. Radwan Ziadeh, a US-based Syrian human rights expert, told the Guardian: “The regime is repeating what it did in Hama and Deir Ezzor to try to put an end to this. And every time we see more violence, some soldiers defect, and we see more violence.” Opposition figures are looking for greater splits in the army than handfuls of defectors, which they see as key to toppling the regime. The regime, which has not spoken about the assault in Latakia, claims it is fighting armed gangs and Islamists. Nour Ali is the pseudonym of a journalist based in Damascus Syria Bashar Al-Assad Middle East Arab and Middle East unrest Protest Nour Ali guardian.co.uk

Posted by on August 14, 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.