Syrian Military Shells Suburb, Killing Nine
MAY 11, 2011, 7:48 A.M. ET
By NOUR MALAS
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Syrian military tanks shelled a suburb of Homs in the early morning hours on Wednesday, killing nine people as hundreds more were arrested in home raids, rights activists said.
Residents reported tanks bombing the suburb of Bab Amro outside the central city of Homs, in on-and-off attacks between midnight and 7 a.m. local-time on Wednesday, according to several rights groups that said they were relaying eyewitness reports.
"The last report we have was at 7:14 this morning," said Wissam Tarif, executive director of Insan, a Syria-focused human-rights group based in Spain.
Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said residents woke up to "waves of sounds of explosions." One activist account online said residents of Homs saw tanks positioned at a train station shelling in the direction of Bab Amro.
More than 500 people have been arrested in home raids across Homs, Syria's third-largest city, over the last 36 hours, Mr. Tarif said. Rampant door-to-door home raids across the country have created an internal "run-away crisis" with thousands of Syrians displaced and on the run, he added. Insan estimates 8,000 people have gone missing or been detained in Syria since the unrest began in mid-March.
Syria's military has moved to quell protest hotspots, starting with Deraa in the south and moving on to Banias on the western coast and Homs in the center. Homs saw some of the largest protests and most violent clashes with security forces last Friday, in which at least 15 people were killed.
Electricity and telecommunications were back on in Banias on Wednesday, after an almost 40-hour blackout, Mr. Tarif said.
The southern city of Deraa, the cradle of Syria's protest movement, was under a military siege for at least 11 days, leaving residents cut off from electricity and water for about a week.
"It's a pattern and they just expanded it after they found relative success in Deraa," Mr. Tarif said. "The operation has two stages. One is siege, to keep people inside, and security check points," he said.
"Then an army unit arrives, the raids start in coordination with military and security intelligence. They raid homes, break doors, gather families in a room, and select from anyone between the ages of 15 and 60 in some cases, and in others they have a list of names to detain."
Protests have remained small and contained in Syria's two largest cities, Damascus and Aleppo. A protest activist in Aleppo said security forces foiled a student demonstration there on Tuesday evening for the second day in row.
"They stopped us quickly," the activist said by telephone. "I don't know what's going on, maybe there are informers among us," he said.
A small group of students started marching on Aleppo University's campus, carrying Coke bottles to use the soft drink to neutralize tear gas and plastic bags wrapped around their shoes to protect against taser shocks, the activist said, before other students started turning on them.
"I couldn't believe it when some of the students started attacking us," he said. "I said, 'You are also a student, a son of Syria, why are you doing this?'"
Protests also emerged on Tuesday in the southern towns of Jassim and Tafas, despite a continued crackdown by tanks and troops there, and in Latakia, activists said.
Latakia, on the Mediterranean coast above Banias, may be an area where the army turns to quell protests next, activists said. Tanks have surrounded the city's main square for six weeks.
Write to Nour Malas at nour.malas@dowjones.com
(source:http://online.wsj.com)
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