THE INDEPENDENT: Brutal security forces move in as government refuses to be cowed by warning of international sanctionsSyria's feared secret police raided hundreds of homes yesterday as authorities stepped up attempts to crush the pro-reform movement amid tentative signs of coordinated action by world leaders against the regime.
Forces were reportedly massing outside the north-western city of Baniyas last night amid fears that the government was planning an assault on a second rebellious city, where two weeks ago soldiers tried to quell protests against President Bashar al-Assad.
Thousands of army troops and tanks stormed the southern city of Deraa on Monday, killing at least 20 people in what appeared to be pre-emptive action against opposition to Assad rather than a response to demonstrations.
People braved sniper fire yesterday to pull the bullet-riddled bodies of the dead from the streets. More than 400 people have died during the uprising against the 11-year rule of Assad. » | Khalid Ali in Damascus and Rupert Cornwell in Washington | Wednesday, April 27, 2011
THE INDEPENDENT: If the dead soldiers are victims of revenge killings, it means the opposition is prepared to use force
Every night, Syrian state television is a horror show. Naked corpses with multiple bullet wounds, backs of heads sliced off. All Syrian soldiers, the television insists, murdered by "the treacherous armed criminal gangs" near Deraa.
One of the bodies – of a young officer in his twenties – has had his eyes gouged out. "Knives and sharp tools" appear to have been used on the soldiers, the commentary tells us. There seems no doubt that the bodies are real and little doubt that they are indeed members of the Syrian "security" forces – the word security needs to be placed in inverted commas these days – nor that the weeping, distraught parents in the background are indeed their families. » | Robert Fisk | Wednesday, April 27, 2011
