Children among the dead in Syria crackdown

Pro-Syrian regime pro­test­ers hold a rally in sup­port of Pres­i­dent Bashar Assad, pic­tured in the large ban­ner, in Dam­as­cus, Syria, Fri­day, Dec. 9, 2011. Syr­ian forces killed at least six peo­ple _ includ­ing two chil­dren _ as they fired on anti-government demon­stra­tions across the coun­try on Fri­day, activists said. The vio­lence comes as the gov­ern­ment tries to choke off a 9-month-old upris­ing demand­ing the ouster of Pres­i­dent Bashar Assad, whose fam­ily has ruled Syria for more than 40 years.(AP Photo/Muzaffar Salman)

ELIZABETH A. KENNEDY

Asso­ci­ated Press

BEIRUT (AP) — Syr­ian secu­rity forces fired on anti-government demon­stra­tions across the coun­try on Fri­day, killing at least 24 peo­ple — includ­ing sev­eral chil­dren — as the regime tries to choke off a 9-month-old upris­ing, activists said.

Some of the worst vio­lence was reported in Homs, a city in cen­tral Syria that has emerged as the epi­cen­ter of the revolt against Pres­i­dent Bashar Assad.

“The earth was shak­ing,” a Homs res­i­dent told The Asso­ci­ated Press by tele­phone, say­ing explo­sions and cracks of gun­fire erupted in the early morn­ing. “Armored per­son­nel car­ri­ers drove through the streets and opened fire ran­domly with heavy machine guns.”

He spoke on con­di­tion of anonymity for fear of retribution.

Despite the relent­less blood­shed, Assad has refused to buckle to the pres­sure to step down and has shown no signs of eas­ing his crack­down. The United Nations esti­mates more than 4,000 peo­ple have been killed in the mil­i­tary assault on dis­sent since March.

Two boys, ages 10 and 12, were hit by stray bul­lets Fri­day near gov­ern­ment check­points in Homs, accord­ing to activists. At least two other young teenagers were killed else­where, the activists said.

Rami Abdul-Rahman, the head of the British-based Syr­ian Obser­va­tory for Human Rights, said the 10-year-old was shot as he crossed the street in the Bab Sbaaa neigh­bor­hood. The 12-year-old was struck as he walked in a crowd exit­ing a mosque, Abdul-Rahman said.

Anti-government demon­stra­tions tra­di­tion­ally peak after Friday’s mid­day prayers, although wit­nesses say there appeared to be a con­certed effort to pre­vent any gath­er­ings this week. Troops were deployed heav­ily and, in many cases, locked down areas before prayers even began.

Secu­rity forces also report­edly fired on protests in the Dam­as­cus sub­urbs, the east­ern city of Deir el-Zour, Idlbi province near Turkey and elsewhere.

In the south­ern town of Daraa, activists said tele­phone and Inter­net lines were cut.

An activist coali­tion called the Local Coor­di­nat­ing Com­mit­tees said up to 35 were killed Fri­day, most of them in Homs. The Britain-based Obser­va­tory had a death count of 24. Casu­alty tolls are dif­fi­cult to com­pile in Syria, where the gov­ern­ment has pre­vented inde­pen­dent report­ing and where vio­lence often pre­vents activists from count­ing the dead.

Syria has banned most for­eign jour­nal­ists and pre­vented local reporters from mov­ing freely. Accounts from activists and wit­nesses, along with ama­teur videos posted online, pro­vide key chan­nels of information.

In New York, the U.N. human rights chief Navi Pil­lay pressed Syria to let observers enter the country.

“Almost 1,000 of Pres­i­dent Assad’s secu­rity forces have also been killed in this con­flict,” Pil­lay said. “This is why I am alert­ing the world that as you have more and more defec­tors from the secu­rity forces, this may well develop into a fully fledged civil war.”

Assad is under grow­ing inter­na­tional pres­sure to curb the bloodshed.

On Wednes­day, Assad claimed in a rare inter­view he never ordered the bru­tal sup­pres­sion of the upris­ing and insisted only a “crazy per­son” would kill his own people.

Turkey, the Arab League and the Euro­pean Union have imposed sanc­tions aimed at squeez­ing the ail­ing economy.

On Fri­day, Turkey urged Assad to pun­ish his secu­rity forces and accept an Arab League observer mis­sion if he is “sin­cere” in his repu­di­a­tion of vio­lence against civilians.

“If he is sin­cere he will pun­ish the secu­rity forces, he will accept the Arab League observers and help change the atmos­phere,” Turkey’s For­eign Min­is­ter Ahmet Davu­to­glu said Fri­day. “He still has the oppor­tu­nity to do this.”

Turkey, mean­while, moved to sus­pend a 2008 free trade agree­ment with Syria, which will lead to the impo­si­tion of taxes of up to 30 per­cent on some Syr­ian goods, author­i­ties said.

The move — like most of the eco­nomic mea­sures taken against Syria — is likely to hit the Syr­ian busi­ness class, which until now has been one of the main props of the regime.

Syria already uni­lat­er­ally sus­pended the free trade agree­ment, but Turkey’s Cab­i­net needed to approve the sus­pen­sion so it can col­lect the taxes.

Cus­toms and Trade Min­is­ter Hay­ati Yazici said Turkey is plan­ning to encour­age Turk­ish trucks to favor Iraqi and Jor­dan­ian routes to Mid­dle East mar­kets, bypass­ing Syria.

“We are hav­ing ten­sions with Syria,” Yazici said. “Of course, our trade is impor­tant but our stance based on human­i­tar­ian val­ues is above everything.”

Posted by AP News on Dec 9 2011. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.