Bloodletting continues in Syria

BEIRUT/TRIPOLI/AMMAN: Security force raids on protest hubs and clashes with armed rebels yesterday left 23 people dead, 16 of them civilians, monitors and activists said, as a tenuous UN-backed cease-fire entered its second month.
The tensions in Syria spilled over into neighboring Lebanon as three people were killed when fighting erupted overnight in the Lebanese city of Tripoli between Alawites loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad and Sunnis, witnesses and security officials said yesterday.
The fresh wave of bloodletting came as the UN mission in Syria said it now has 189 military observers on the ground, nearly two-thirds of its planned strength of 300.
The observers are tasked with shoring up a ceasefire brokered by UN-Arab League peace envoy Kofi Annan that was supposed to take effect on April 12 but which has been broken daily by both sides to the conflict.
Two civilians and five soldiers died in gunfights between regime forces and armed rebels in the southern province of Daraa, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported.
Clashes broke out in front of a military intelligence office and a recruitment center in the Daraa village of Nawa and at a checkpoint in the town of Hara, it added.
In central Hama province, five people were killed by gunfire, including a woman, when regime forces raided the village of Al-Tamanaa Al-Ghab, the Britain-based watchdog said, adding that 18 people were wounded and several houses set on fire.
A man and his son were killed and 10 other people wounded when they were shot by regime forces in the town of Qusayr in central Homs province, where armed rebel groups have strongholds, the watchdog added. Syrian troops backed by armored vehicles yesterday overran a rebellious Sunni village west of the city of Hama, burning houses and arresting dozens of people, an activists' organization said.
Four women were among those killed in the village of Tamanaa in Al-Ghab, a lush plain in the rural epicenter of the 14-month revolt against Assad's rule, said the Syrian Network for Human Rights, an opposition activists' group monitoring the crackdown.
“The village was subjected to collective punishment. Over half of its houses were burned. Several people were executed when they were arrested. The rest were killed from bombardment,” a statement from the organization said. Also in Homs, a civilian was killed by sniper fire in the town of Rastan.
Outside Damascus, a civilian was shot dead by regime forces at a checkpoint in Dmeir, while another two were killed by regime forces in the capital's northern suburb of Douma, according to the Observatory
A rebel commander, Abu Adi, was killed in overnight clashes with regime forces in Douma, while an officer who deserted the army died in a dawn ambush in the eastern province of Deir Ezzor. Regime forces killed two more civilians in northwest Idlib province and another in the town of Anadan in northern Aleppo province.
The Local Coordination Committees (LCC), a coalition of opposition activists on the ground, said the Syrian army shelled Douma early yesterday and that heavy gunfire was also heard in the suburb.
Rocket-propelled grenades and automatic rifles were used in the fighting in Tripoli’s Alawite enclave and surrounding Sunni neighborhoods in the port city, 70 km north of Beirut. “The clashes peaked at dawn. The sound of gunfire is still echoing in the city,” a Lebanese security official said.
The official Lebanese state news agency said a soldier hit by sniper fire was among those killed.
A statement from the army said reinforcements were being sent to the city and that troops were “pursuing armed men to return the situation to normality.”
A Reuters correspondent in the city said most of Tripoli's main intersections were blocked by burned tires and that the Lebanese army had deployed in an area separating the Alawite enclave from the rest of the city.