Syrian troops kill 16 people in Homs as security crackdown intensifies

Residents in city of Homs claim government forces and ‘death squads’ are firing indiscriminately on civilians Spiralling violence took hold of the Syrian city of Homs on Tuesday as troops and militiamen loyal to President Bashar al-Assad killed 16 people in an apparent escalation of a security crackdown against a focal point for pro-democracy protests. This brings the death toll in the country’s third biggest and most mixed city in the past few days alone to at least 40 people, in addition to an estimated 1,500 killed since the Syrian uprising began five months ago. The latest fatalities added to mounting concern that events in Homs, which has a population of 1.5 million, are taking on a dangerously sectarian character. In a grimly familiar pattern, Tuesday’s dead included three mourners at a funeral for 10 people who were killed by security forces on Monday, activists said. “We could not bury the martyrs at the city’s main cemetery, so we opted for a smaller cemetery near the mosque when the militiamen began firing at us from their cars,” one mourner told Reuters. “We have to leave, we can’t stay – it’s too

Posted by on July 19, 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.