Post by discoberry on Aug 13, 2011 8:34:23 GMT -5
The deployment took place a day after security forces shot dead 20 people during nationwide marches in which demonstrators called for Assad's overthrow and vowed to "kneel only to God".
Funny that he is head of a secularist party.
The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said around 20 military vehicles deployed on Saturday near the Ramle district of the Mediterranean city of Latakia, where 10,000 people had demonstrated on Friday.
"Heavy gunfire could be heard from 10.30 am until midday (0730 to 0900 GMT)," the group's head Rami Abdel Rahman said, adding that large numbers of people were fleeing the area.
He also reported that soldiers backed by loyalist gunmen, known as shabbiha, raided villages close to the northern town of Qusair near the Lebanon border, carrying out arrests.
"Heavy gunfire could be heard from 10.30 am until midday (0730 to 0900 GMT)," the group's head Rami Abdel Rahman said, adding that large numbers of people were fleeing the area.
He also reported that soldiers backed by loyalist gunmen, known as shabbiha, raided villages close to the northern town of Qusair near the Lebanon border, carrying out arrests.
Since the start of Ramadan in early August, Assad has stepped up the military campaign, launching army assaults on the central city of Hama and the city of Deir al-Zor in the eastern Sunni Muslim tribal heartland. Assad's family, which has ruled Syria for 41 years, is from the minority Alawite sect.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Friday Syria would be better off without Assad and called on nations that buy oil or sell arms to Syria to cut those ties.
"We urge those countries still buying Syrian oil or gas, those countries still sending Assad weapons, those countries whose political and economic support give him comfort in his brutality, to get on the right side of history," she said.
Syria's oil industry, with which the Assad family has close links, generates most of the state's hard currency from crude output of 380,000 barrels per day.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Friday Syria would be better off without Assad and called on nations that buy oil or sell arms to Syria to cut those ties.
"We urge those countries still buying Syrian oil or gas, those countries still sending Assad weapons, those countries whose political and economic support give him comfort in his brutality, to get on the right side of history," she said.
Syria's oil industry, with which the Assad family has close links, generates most of the state's hard currency from crude output of 380,000 barrels per day.
www.haaretz.com/news/middle-east/syria-tanks-sweep-into-latakia-gunfire-reported-1.378426
