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City still mourning its June dead comes under attack again as regime forces smash makeshift barricades As the sun was rising on the last day before Ramadan, the moment Hama’s residents had feared finally arrived. Through the barren landscape came the ominous rumble of tanks, heading towards the city from four directions as they bore down on the piles of tyres and bricks that locals had laid out across the main roads as makeshift checkpoints. “They started shooting with heavy machines guns at civilians, at the young men protecting the barricades,” said Omar Halabi, an activist in the city, speaking by Skype. “People started to scream, to say Allahu Akbar and wake each other up. They started to come down into the streets.” Few of Hama’s residents have believed they would get away with protesting in their thousands against the regime of Bashar al-Assad indefinitely, and on the eve of Ramadan, when protests are expected to intensify, the regime clearly decided it had had enough. The regime’s security forces had withdrawn from the city after the weekend of 3 June after shooting over 70 residents dead after Friday prayers. Since then thousands have poured into al-Aasi square, just steps from the Orontes river which divides the city of some 800,000 into east and west. They have carried olive branches and pink roses calling for the toppling of the regime, repeating protest chants called out from a central podium and eating food and drink given out by volunteers. The city has continued to function as people have drawn together to run their own neighbourhoods and set up barricades to prevent forces entering. But 31 July seems set to join 3 June and February 1982 – the year when Bashar’s father and former president Hafez quashed an armed Islamist revolt, killing at least 10,000 – as dates burnt on Hama’s collective memory. An ominous sign that the security forces were on their way came when water and electricity was cut in many areas, repeating a tactic in other cities prior to military incursions. The rumblings of tanks carrying soldiers could be heard as they made their way along the dusty main streets. A father of three, awoken from his sleep, told the Guardian early Saturday morning that tanks and armoured vehicles were coming into the edges of the city from all points of the compass by 5.30am. “They are shooting, trying to get into the city,” said the man who asked not be named, the sound of gunfire audible in the background. Snipers have been one of the deadliest and most effective weapons deployed by the regime during the four and a half months of protests that have gripped Syria. They were spotted on the roofs of the state-owned electricity company and the main prison, a resident told Reuters. Amateur video footage uploaded showed black smoke rising from the city and a mosque minaret being fired on. Residents reported bodies lying in the streets and the injured piling into Hourani and al-Badr hospitals as doctors called out for more blood. Some activists said many had been shot in the head, while others had been run over by tanks. A child aged five was among those killed. Many were killed as the residents tried to fight back. Two men reached in the city said the protesters refused to abandon the checkpoints, but tried to force tanks to back off. “People grabbed whatever they could and went into the streets with bare chests, walking towards the tanks with wooden bats, steel bars or stones,” Halabi said. “It was unbelievable that people were running towards the firing rather than away from it.” Most of the casualties came from among these people, but activists also reported random shooting at homes in the northern area of the city. For almost four hours residents described the shooting as continuous: a cacophony of machine gunfire mixed with the heavy thuds of tank fire. “This is not Kalashnikov fire today – it is all heavy artillery and machine guns – 500mm guns,” said Halabi. While the people were no match for tanks, several residents said that by Sunday the security forces had not reached all the central areas of the city. “We confirmed 17 tanks,” said Wissam Tarif, the head of human rights group Insan, who is in contact with residents in the city. “But people are talking of many more than that.” The death toll, circulated online by Twitter and human rights activists, rose rapidly throughout the early hours of the morning, reaching over 20 by 10am. By early afternoon the Local Coordination Committees had confirmed 49 names of the dead, Ammar Qurabi of the National Organisation for Human Rights, reported 95 while residents reached by phone told the Guardian local estimates were over 100. Despite shows of bravery, fear was palpable in the city. Some residents said they were hunkering down inside, calling people in different areas to find out the latest news. “I daren’t go further than my front gate; many people are afraid to leave the city because they fear they will be fired on,” said the father of three, reached again later in the afternoon. He said some protesters were trying to break into police stations to get weapons to defend themselves, while others had captured four snipers. Unlike other cities where some protesters report buying arms, protesters and checkpoint guards in Hama have used just stones and wooden bats. Other than the hanging of an informer on 4 June, there have been few reports of retaliatory attacks against government forces. By early afternoon some residents said the gunfire had become more intermittent. But the city is braced for more violence following alleged defections. “We confirmed an officer defecting with soldiers and two tanks. It could yet turned uglier as when soldier defect in small numbers we end up seeing a search and kill operation,” said Tarif. But bloodshed – human rights groups say over 1,600 people have been killed since mid-March – has yet to convince anti-regime protesters to kowtow. “We have come this far; we can’t go back now,” said the father in Hama. Nour Ali is the pseudonym of a journalist in Damascus Syria Bashar Al-Assad Arab and Middle East unrest Middle East guardian.co.uk