Damascus: Syrian activists said yesterday they were sickened by e-mails which appeared to show Assad and his wife shopping for pop music and luxury items while the country descended into bloodshed.

Britain’s Guardian newspaper said it obtained some 3,000 e-mails from Assad and his wife, Asma. The e-mails, not all verified by the paper yet, showed Assad taking advice from Iran on countering the one-year revolt against his rule that has claimed thousands of lives. “He was downloading iTunes songs while his army was shelling us. His wife was buying expensive things from Amazon, that makes me feel sick,” said an activist called Rami in Homs.

A new massacre report and a refugee exodus to Turkey marked the first anniversary of the Syrian uprising yesterday. The Syrian Observatory said 23 mutilated corpses were found near Idlib in northwest Syria that was seized by regime forces this week.

The victims had been blindfolded and handcuffed before being shot dead and the bodies dumped outside Idlib, it said, in an apparent repeat of a “massacre” of dozens of women and children in the flash point city of Homs last weekend.

Bahrain has decided to close its embassy in Damascus and to recall its diplomats, the official BNA news agency said yesterday. The government advised Bahrainis who were still in Syria to “be cautious and to immediately leave this country.”

European Union foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton wants the bloc’s 27 governments to pull all its ambassadors out of Syria going into talks among foreign ministers next week.

A meeting next Thursday and Friday will, for the first time, include Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu — who canceled a planned trip last month — and will focus on “possible closures of the EU embassies in Syria,” a senior EU source said.