SYRIAN TROOPS consolidated their hold on the restive town of Jisr al-Shughour yesterday and pursued anti-regime militants in the mountains of the strategic Idlib province adjacent to the Turkish border.
Ten uniformed corpses – four said to be decapitated – were exhumed from a multiple grave outside the town’s security headquarters. The government has said 120 members of the security forces were killed during fighting in Jisr al-Shughour, 20km from the frontier.
Syrian state television reported they died in fighting with “armed gangs” but opposition sources contended they were defectors shot by colleagues. Mustafa Osso, a Syrian-based opposition activist, told al-Jazeera television channel: “This is the biggest and most dangerous wave of defections” since the revolt began in mid-March. But there has been no independent estimate of the scope of defections.
In a bid to demonstrate the government is serious about investigating officers accused of violence against civilians, a travel ban has been imposed on Brig Gen Atef Najib, a cousin of president Bashar al-Assad. Gen Najib was in charge of security in the southern city of Deraa where there were protests after he ordered the arrest of 15 teenagers who had written provocative slogans on walls. He was dismissed from his post but this did not prevent protests from spreading to other cities, towns and villages. Gen Najib is the first senior regime figure and relative of the president to have been served with a ban.
The UN High Commission for Refugees says that 5,000 refugees from Idlib have sought sanctuary just across the Turkish border and a reported 10,000 are said to be hovering on the Syrian side of the frontier, some with their cattle, sheep, goats and horses. But traffic is reported to be normal at official crossings where Syrian businessmen, merchants and holidaymakers continue to enter and leave Syria. This suggests the unrest is taking place in isolated pockets around the country. However, the generally high volume of traffic at the main crossing between Lebanon and Syria has fallen dramatically. Taxi and lorry drivers who ply this route have little work. Few of the massive lorries carrying goods from Lebanon into Syria are seen on the highway between Beirut and Damascus.
Opposition sources have put the number of fatalities at 1,300 and say that 10,000 people have been detained during the unrest.
The Syrian government received a boost yesterday when Lebanon’s premier designate Najib Mikati formed a new cabinet, ending five months of factional wrangling. The government headed by Saad Hariri, a pro-western figure, fell in January. Mr Mikati has the backing of the Shia Amal, Hizbullah and the Maronite Catholic Free Patriotic Movement, allies of Damascus. A wealthy businessman, he has close ties with Syria and has promised a “government of all Lebanon that will labour for all Lebanese. There will be no divisions or distinctions between those who formed the government or those who opposed it.”
The government must be confirmed by the 128-member parliament where Hizbullah and its allies hold a slim majority.
