Syria: scores dead as Arab League expands mission
As many as 40 demonstrators were said to have been killed in total by government troops after the Arab League’s observers fanned out across four restive cities on only the third day of their mission to enforce a peace deal.
In Damascus, regime troops opened fire on a crowd of more than 20,000 people as they awaited the arrival of peace monitors outside a mosque in the suburb of Douma. Troops also opened fire in the city’s suburbs of Aarbin and Madamiya.
“They used tanks, they used machine guns,” Omar al-Khani, an activist in Damascus, told The Daily Telegraph last night. “They started shooting everywhere.
“We are now in a very bad situation. We can’t bring the injured outside the city, we can’t bring them to hospitals, we can’t move. Anyone who moves, they shoot at them.”
Douma, which has seen repeated protests, rang to the sound of machine gun fire. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, three people died instantly and more later, with many more critically injured.
One particularly chilling video posted online on Thursday night showed a protester being bundled into the back of a police van, his face bloodied. It then showed a soldier pointing his gun through a slat in the side, while others raised their guns at the back, before a shot is heard. Mr Khani said the man’s body was found several minutes later.
