HUNDREDS OF thousands of protesters flooded cities around Syria yesterday – in what activists described as the largest outpouring against the regime of President Bashar Assad – and at least 14 people were killed in clashes, activists said.
The protests, flaring in dozens of places at the same time, further strained the resources of Dr Assad’s security forces and military as they also try to choke off a refugee wave into Turkey.
The hub of the latest protests – the central city of Hama – brings further complications for the government.
Security forces moved outside Hama in early June after shootings that left 65 people dead, and now the streets appear fully under the sway of the opposition, with an estimated 300,000 people gathering yesterday in the central square, activists said. Crowd estimates and other details cannot be independently verified. The Syrian government has banned most foreign media from the country and restricted coverage.
But the protest surge yesterday appeared to dwarf recent weeks as Dr Assad’s forces tried to wear down the opposition with relentless force. Syrian human rights groups said more than 1,400 people had been killed, most of them unarmed protesters, since mid-March.
The regime disputes that, blaming “armed thugs” and foreign conspirators for the unrest. – (AP)