AMMAN (Reuters) – Syrian forces killed at least five people in an assault on two northern towns Thursday, activists said, pursuing a military campaign to crush protests against President Bashar al-Assad despite new U.S. sanctions and regional calls to end bloodshed.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said it had the names of five people killed and 16 wounded in morning raids by security forces backed by tanks on Qusair, near the Lebanon border, after overnight protests calling for Assad’s removal.
Another activist group, the Syrian Revolution Coordinating Union, said it had identified at least nine people, including a woman and a baby, killed by random gunfire in Qusair.
Around 14 tanks and armored vehicles also swept into Saraqeb, a town on Syria’s main north-south highway that has seen daily demonstrations, and 100 people were arrested by the security forces, residents said by telephone.
Syria’s north, particularly Idlib province abutting Turkey, has been one of the hotbeds of the demonstrations across the country for more political freedoms, inspired by popular revolts against repressive ruling elites elsewhere in the Arab world.
Syria has barred most independent journalists since the uprising against 41 years of repressive Assad family rule flared five months ago, making it difficult to
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