Syrian forces open machine-gun fire on Homs residents

Beirut - 22 July 2011: Syrian security forces swept through neighborhoods in a restive central city on Thursday, firing machine guns and pulling people from their homes in a series of arrests, activists and residents said.

Smoke billowed from at least one area in Homs, which has experienced some of the most intense and sustained violence in recent days as President Bashar Assad's regime seeks to stamp out a more than 4-month-old popular uprising against him.

"There was heavy gunfire in the Al-Khalidiyeh, Baba Amr and Al-Nazhine quarters (of Homs), and two people were killed," said Abdel Karim Rihawi, head of the Syrian League for Human Rights.

Rami Abdul-Rahman, the director of the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said tanks closed in on neighborhoods including Bab Dreib and Bab Sbaa, where the main raids were taking place.

He said conditions in Bab Sbaa, near the city center, are "miserable" adding that at least one home was burned and telecommunications had been cut in parts of the city. He said residents reported "a wide wave of arrests" with people being taken from their homes, but he could not give an exact figure.

Up to 50 people have been killed in Homs since the latest crackdown and sectarian violence began Saturday, according to activists and witnesses.

A resident in the city said mosques issued calls via loudspeakers for people to aid Bab Sbaa and urged people to donate blood in hospitals. The resident, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of government reprisals, said Bab Sbaa has been subjected to heavy machine-gun fire since 4 a.m.

"I can see smoke billowing from the neighborhood," the man told The Associated Press by telephone as heavy gunfire could be heard in the background. "We cannot leave our homes."

Syria has come under withering international criticism and sanctions for its crackdown, which activists say has killed some 1,600 people, most of them unarmed protesters.

The Local Coordination Committees, which help organize and document the protests in Syria, said troops were bombarding residential streets in Bab Sbaa with tanks and machine guns. The LCC said casualties occurred in the raids, but the gunfire was too intense for people to collect the victims from the streets. It also said that some army soldiers defected and were shooting back at troops firing at civilian areas.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon denounced the "escalating violence" in Syria. "The secretary general is following with deep concern the escalating violence against peaceful protesters in Syria," said spokesman Martin Nesirky, who called on the government to "stop the repression immediately."

"The secretary general reiterates his call for a credible and inclusive dialogue, which should be carried out without delay," Nesirky said.

Meanwhile, France has dismissed a Syrian warning that the American and French ambassadors should not travel outside Damascus without permission.

French Foreign Ministry spokesman Romain Nadal said the warning by Syria's foreign minister Wednesday illustrates "the isolation ... of the Syrian regime."

Two weeks ago, the US and French ambassadors angered the Syrian government by visiting a city that has become the center of the country's uprising.

Nadal told an online briefing, "it is naturally part of the role of ambassadors to move around in the countries where they reside." He noted that Syria's ambassador to France can travel where she wants.

The US State Department said the Syrian order reflected a government that has something to hide.

source: Arab News