Syria Escalates Crackdown as Tanks Go to Restive City
By ANTHONY SHADID
Published: April 25, 2011
BEIRUT, Lebanon — The Syrian Army on Monday deployed tanks and thousands of soldiers into the restive southern city of Dara’a and carried out arrests in poor towns on the outskirts of the capital, Damascus, in a sharp escalation of the widening crackdown on Syria’s five-week-old uprising, according to human rights activists and accounts posted on social networking sites. They said at least 25 people were killed in Dara’a, with bodies strewn in the streets.
Reuters TV
Syrian troops in tanks and armored vehicles moved into the southern town Dara’a and opened fire on Monday, according to residents.
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Residents said that at least eight tanks entered Dara’a before dawn from four directions, and there were reports of artillery and mortars being used. Phone lines were cut to the area, making first-hand accounts difficult, and nearby border crossings with Jordan were reportedly sealed. But video smuggled out of the town showed a cloud of black smoke rising on the horizon and volleys of heavy gunfire echoing in the distance.
Though the government has used deadly force to suppress demonstrations before, tanks had not previously been used against protesters, and the strength of the assault suggested that the military planned some sort of occupation of the town. Residents put the size of the force at anywhere from 4,000 to 6,000 troops. Snipers took positions on the roofs of mosques, residents said, and a mix of soldiers and armed irregular forces known as shabeeha were going house to house to search for protesters.
“There are bodies in the streets we can’t reach; anyone who walks outside is getting shot at,” said a resident of Dara’a who gave his name as Abdullah, reached by satellite phone. “They want to teach Syria a lesson by teaching Dara’a a lesson.”
He said soldiers had taken three mosques, but had yet to capture the Omari Mosque, where thousands had reportedly sought refuge. Since the beginning of the uprising last month, it has served as a headquarters of sorts for demonstrators. He quoted people there shouting, “We swear you will not enter but over our dead bodies.”
A handful of videos posted on the Internet, along with residents’ accounts, painted a picture of a city under broad military assault, in what appeared to be a new phase in the government crackdown. “It’s an attempt to occupy Dara’a,” Abdullah said.
For weeks, organizers have managed to circumvent the government’s attempt to black out news from Dara’a and cities like Homs. But it appeared to have more success Monday. Organizers themselves had trouble reaching contacts, and only occasional videos emerged from the tumult. One video showed heavily armed soldiers taking up positions behind walls, a few feet away from a tank parked in what appeared to be a leafy, main street. In another, a young boy threw a chunk of concrete at a passing tank.
“God is great, Bashar,” a protester cried in one. “Why are you attacking us?”
The town of low-slung buildings, with about 75,000 inhabitants, has become almost synonymous with the revolt, which has posed the greatest challenge to four decades of rule by the Assad family. Protests erupted there in March after security forces arrested a group of high school students accused of scrawling antigovernment graffiti on a wall, galvanizing demonstrations that have spread to virtually every province in Syria.
Other activists said Syrian security forces also entered two towns on the capital’s outskirts – Douma and Maadamiah – carrying out dozens of arrests. Clashes have been especially pronounced in the poor, restive towns that encircle Damascus, and activists said there were reports of shooting during the raids that began Monday morning there.
Residents reported that security forces had surrounded the towns on Sunday. Anyone leaving or entering, they said, was searched, in an apparent attempt to stop protesters from marching on the capital, a bulwark of the Assad family’s rule.
In Jabla, a coastal city inhabited by Syria’s Sunni Muslim majority and members of the minority Alawite sect, from which the government draws much of its support, security forces killed at least 12 people in a crackdown that began Sunday and persisted into the night. One resident said protesters burned an army car and took a soldier hostage.
“The army is deployed all over the area,” said another resident who gave his name as Abu Ahmed. “I can’t describe how bad the situation was all night. It’s a street war.”
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“The plate has shattered,” he said, using an Arabic expression. “There’s strife between us now. It’s been planted, and the problem is going to exist forever in Jabla.”
The widening crackdown comes amid reports that scores of residents have gone missing in Syria since Friday, many of them from Homs and the towns near Damascus, activists say. In Saqba alone, one of the capital’s suburbs, an organizer said that 100 people had disappeared Friday, with no record of their arrest.
“There is going to be much more bloodshed,” said Wissam Tarif, head of Insan, a Syrian human rights group, “All the signals from my perspective indicate that.”
Mr. Tarif said his organization had compiled the names of 217 people, in all, who had disappeared since early Friday. At least 70 of them were from the towns near the capital’s outskirts and 68 others were from Homs, Syria’s third-largest city and the site of especially vigorous protests the past week. Taken together, he said the group had documented names of missing from 17 cities and villages.
“It just doesn’t stop,” he said. “Names keep pouring in.”
The crackdown is yet another indication that the government’s decision to lift draconian emergency rule, in place since 1963, may prove more rhetoric than reform. Though the government has touted its repeal Thursday as a sweeping step, the past few days have proven some of the bloodiest and most repressive since the uprising began.
“We don’t trust this regime anymore,” another protester said in Jabla.
Human Rights Watch called on the United Nations to set up an international inquiry into their deaths and urged the United States and Europe to impose sanctions on officials responsible for the shootings and detentions of hundreds of protesters.
“After Friday’s carnage, it is no longer enough to condemn the violence,” said Joe Stork, the deputy Middle East director at the organization, which is based in New York.
Tommy Vietor, the National Security Council spokesman, said the Obama administration was considering sanctions.
“The brutal violence used by the government of Syria against its people is completely deplorable and we condemn it in the strongest possible terms,” he said Monday. “The United States is pursuing a range of possible policy options, including targeted sanctions, to respond to the crackdown and make clear that this behavior is unacceptable. The Syrian people’s call for freedom of expression, association, peaceful assembly and the ability to freely choose their leaders must be heard.”
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