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Syrian troops step up attacks, fighting in Hama goes on
Syrian forces launched a renewed assault yesterday on the city of Hama, extending their effort to crush a four-month-old rebellion into the first day of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, despite growing world condemnation.
Anti-government protesters in the Syrian city of Hama set up barricades and took up sticks and stones to defend themselves Monday after one of the bloodiest days so far in the regime's campaign to quell an uprising now in its fifth month.
The protesters vowed not to allow a repeat of 1982, when thousands of people were killed in Hama after President Bashar Assad's father ordered a massacre.
At least nine people were killed yesterday, including four in Hama, according to the human rights group Insan. The other five were killed in the two eastern towns of Deir al-Zour and Abu Kamal, which also have been targeted by the regime in its effort to suppress the uprising.
But the toll in Hama was expected to rise because residents reported a sudden and intense increase in the scale of bombardment, with shells crashing into residential neighborhoods, a hospital, and the courthouse.
Hama, Deir al-Zour, and Abu Kamal have been the focus of escalating antigovernment demonstrations during Ramadan.
Violence Sunday left 102 people dead across the country, 76 of them from Hama and nearby, according to Insan. It was one of the bloodiest days since the uprising against President Bashar Assad’s authoritarian rule in Syria began in mid-March.
The offensive suggests that Assad’s government has not been swayed by sensitivities surrounding deaths in the holy month, during which observant Muslims fast between sunrise and sunset.
Hama is also considered uniquely sensitive because it is the site of an infamous massacre in 1982 in which at least 10,000 people died when Assad’s father, Hafez el-Assad, crushed an uprising there.
