Dozens Killed as Syrian Forces Storm Restive Cities
Syrian military and security forces stormed Hama and other restive cities before dawn on Sunday, killing at least 75 people in what appeared to mark the fiercest crackdown yet by the government of President Bashar al-Assad on the four-month old uprising against his rule, activists and residents there said.
The simultaneous raids on several cities came a day before the holy month of Ramadan, during which activists vowed to escalate their uprising with nightly protests. The scale of the assault and the mounting death toll underlined the government’s intention to crush the uprising by force, despite international condemnations and its own tentative reforms aimed at placating its protesters’ demands.
“Today we are witnessing a major assault,” said Omar Idlibi, a spokesman for the Local Coordination Committee, a Syrian opposition group that helps organize and document protests. “It is a last-minute attempt by the regime to reclaim cities that it lost control of, even by force.”
The fiercest operation was against the central city of Hama, where at least 49 people were killed, the committee said. Activists offered different accounts of the toll, some far higher. The numbers were impossible to immediately confirm.