A Turkish soldier protects in a refugee camp in the city of Boynuyogun in the province of Hatay. Turkey asked Syria to immediately halt its violent crackdown on demonstrators and begin democratic reforms. (Osman Orsal, Reuters / June 18, 2011)Syria suffered another agonising day of bloodshed on Friday as security forces fired on anti-government protesters after weekly prayers in several cities throughout the country.Human rights activists said at least 24 unarmed people were killed in the violence.
Amateur video showed the security forces in military vehicles firing at children in the southern city of Dail, where activists say a 13-year-old boy died and 16 years old was wounded.Another showed panic demonstrators dashing for cover as gunfire broke out in the streets of Homs. Crying men might be carrying the weak body of a man who had apparently been injured in the face.
Lifting of three months of Syria has become the greatest challenge in the old authoritarian rule of President Bashar Assad and his family. The regime has responded with a brutal military repression of sectarian connotations.
The events have sent shock waves throughout the region and beyond.
In Washington, an administration official Obama senior said the size and the persistence of the protests that it showed that "the fear factor is no longer enough to keep people at home." Some members of the Syria opposition meet daily with the United States Robert S. Ford Ambassador and other officials of the Embassy in Damascus, despite the risk, according to officials of United States.
Said officials of the Administration and its allies were weighing the measures of pressure Assad, including the imposition of additional sanctions in Syria oil and gas sector. Also under consideration is a recommendation that the International Criminal Court considered charges against members of the Assad regime for violence against the demonstrators.
Assad regime is dominated by alawitas, a small Shiite Muslim Branch estimated that 10% of the population of Syria. The majority of Syrians are Sunni Muslims.
In the neighbouring Lebanon, new clashes on Friday in a joint Alawite Sunni district of Tripoli left at least four people dead and 22 wounded. The violence erupted when activists anti-Assad held a large protest in the coastal city, the official Lebanon News Agency reported.
Late Thursday, cousin of Assad unpopular and powerful, Rami Makhlouf telecommunications magnate, said that it was withdrawing from business and devoted their profits to charity, a claim that could not be verified.
"I will not allow for me be a burden to Syria, its people or President." I will put in part of the movement of the actions that I have Syriatel Mobile Telecom for Syrian citizens with limited income, "it said in a televised appearance."
Makhlouf is ready black by the European Union as one of the 13 figures of regime behind the violence which, according to rights activists, has killed 1,300 people for three months.
Protesters and activists do not seem to be deterred by the increasingly violent repression nor impressed by the affirmation of Makhlouf. In the social networking sites, they teased him as "Mother Teresa's Rami" and took to the streets to express their grievances. An activist in the Syria city of Latakia, who did not want to be identified, said that the actions were never his start with.
It was made of corruption, and their companies did not clean money, said another Syrian activist, Hozan Ibrahim, who lives in Europe."That statement was a foul play by the regime and did nothing, and was made in vain. "People do not believe."
Video posted on the Internet showed peaceful demonstrators in campus in Damascus, the capital and its suburbs, as well as in Aleppo, the second largest city in the country. Other video showed large protests in Homs, the third city; the central city of Hama; and the Kurdish towns of Qamishli and Amouda.
An activist reached by telephone in Homs says thousands have taken to the streets in several neighborhoods.
"The demonstrators in several protests in the city attempted to join, but security forces fired tear gas into the crowds to disperse protests,", said the activist, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Also chanted in support of the Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose Government this week cooled considerably once warm ties with Syria on violations of human rights.
"Erdogan, who is the hope for the Syrians," chanted, according to the activist.
Another video uploaded to the Internet showed activists in Latakia ready to set fire to flags of Iran, Russia and the militant group Hezbollah, all friends of the Assad regime.
"People want the overthrow of the regime," they chanted.
Also reported protests in the Northwestern town of Idlib, the scene in the last weeks of a mass crackdown on security; the besieged cities of the region of Dara in the South; the coastal city of Baniyas. and Deir Alzour, on the Euphrates River, near the Iraqi border, where troops are concentration so it can be a major security operation.
Activists, using topics each Friday to highlight different aspects of the protest movement, dedicated effort this week to Sheikh Salih ibn Ali, a leader Alawite who fought for the independence of Syria of France in the 1920s. Assad, also an Alawite, has been sharpening sectarian divisions in Syria and in the region through the deployment of troops led by his co-religionists against the Sunni majority.
The riots and the regime continues the use of military force to put down peaceful protests, has sent thousands of Syrians in the neighbouring countries, particularly in Turkey, which has established camps to House an exodus that has come so far to 10,000.
Actress Angelina Jolie, Goodwill Ambassador for the Office of the High Commissioner of the United Nations for refugees, arrived in private jet on Friday in the southeast of Turkey to visit refugees in an effort to draw attention to their situation.
daragahi@LATimes.com
Special correspondent Alexandra Sandels in Beirut, special correspondent in Damascus, and sometimes personal writer Paul Richter in Washington contributed to this report.
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