THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Suspected dissidents were seized from their homes in Syria on Saturday as the country's Ba'athist regime deployed its feared secret police in an operation to spread renewed fear among opposition sympathisers.here were reports of pre-dawn raids across the country, highlighting the risks faced by those who dared publicly to challenge Bashar al-Assad, Syria's president of 11 years, even when they were not braving live fire on the streets.
After days of using his aides to signal his willingness to make concessions, Mr Assad abruptly changed tack on Wednesday in a defiant television address in which he denounced protesters as conspirators in the pay of foreign powers.
The uncompromising new strategy appeared to yield dividends, with fewer taking to the streets on Friday than opposition activists had hoped.
But, showing that the challenge to Mr Assad was far from over, tens of thousands were still willing to defy him in demonstrations across the country despite widespread expectation of savage retaliation from the security forces.
Once again, as has happened so often in over a fortnight of unrest, they were met with violence and live fire by police and military units as well as unidentified loyalists in plain clothes who took up sniper positions on rooftops and balconies.
In a country that has effectively sealed itself off to the outside world, it is nearly impossible to establish an accurate death toll. But opposition activists told of as many as 27 deaths in four different towns and cities. » | Adrian Blomfield, Middle East Correspondent and Loveday Morris | Saturday, March 02, 2011
