DAMASCUS: Forces loyal to President Bashar Assad killed eight people across Syria overnight, activists said on Friday, in a sustained campaign to crush street protests against his rule buoyed by the demise of Muammar Qaddafi’s power in Libya.
Many of the deaths occurred as a result of attacks on street demonstrations demanding an end to 41 years of Assad family domination that have been breaking out daily after Ramadan prayers that follow the breaking of the fast, they said.
“Congratulations to the Libyan people,” read signs carried by protesters who marched at night demanding Assad’s removal in the town of Kisweh, where thousands of refugees from the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights live, just south of Damascus. “God is with us. The revolution is bringing together the free,” shouted demonstrators in the resort town of Zabadani, west of the capital and near the border with Lebanon.
Spurred by calls posted on the Internet, protesters flooded the streets in the north, center and south of the country, chanting “Bashar, we don’t love you, even if you turn night into day,” according to activists.
The latest bloodletting came as the UN Security Council remained divided over measures against President Bashar Assad’s regime, with Russia and China blocking bids to pass fresh sanctions, including a total arms embargo.
The ruler of energy-rich Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani, meanwhile, upped the pressure on Syria during a visit to key Damascus ally Iran, saying the use of force was “fruitless.”
The Syrian Revolution 2011 Facebook group, a motor of the protests since mid-March in defiance of a deadly government crackdown, called the rallies under the banner of “Friday of patience and determination” “We will not rest until the fall of the regime,” read the message issued on the last Friday of Ramadan. Some 15,000 marched in Al-Khalidiyeh, in the protest hub of Homs in central Syria, while huge demonstrations erupted in Deir Ezzor, in and around Damascus, in Al-Bukamal bordering Iraq, and Idlib in the northwest.
The official SANA news agency said armed masked men attacked security forces in Deir Ezzor, wounding three but they were later killed in an exchange of fire.
The Local Coordination Committees, a group with people on the ground across Syria involved in organizing protests against Assad’s regime, also reported that 5,000 people demonstrated in Qamishli, northeast Syria.
Abdel Karim Rihawi, head of the Syrian League for the Defense of Human Rights who spent time in jail earlier this month, said thousands flooded the streets of Sakhur, a neighborhood of Syria’s second city Aleppo.
The Syrian Revolution 2011 urged pro-democracy protesters to rally later on Friday and throughout the night in Aleppo for Laylat Al-Qadr — a high point during Ramadan.
Meanwhile, a UN humanitarian mission to Syria found an “urgent need” to protect civilians against excessive force and reported widespread intimidation, a UN spokesman said Friday.
“The mission concluded that although there is no countrywide humanitarian crisis, there is an urgent need to protect civilians from the excessive use of force,” UN deputy spokesman Farhan Haq told reporters.
The UN experts were allowed to go to a number of protest cities but were always accompanied by government representatives.
Haq said “the constant presence of government officials limited the mission’s ability to fully and independently assess the situation.” “The people it was able to talk to in areas of previous or ongoing unrest said they felt extremely intimidated and under constant threat.”
Lebanon’s Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah on Friday called for a “peaceful resolution” in Syria, warning of regional fallout.
“All those who claim they are friends of Syria ... must step up efforts to help calm the situation in Syria and encourage dialogue and a peaceful resolution,” he told a massive crowd in the southern village of Maroun Al-Ras in Lebanon via video link.
“Anything else is dangerous for Syria, Palestine and the region,” the Shiite leader said in a speech to mark “Quds Day,” an annual Iranian-inspired event to show solidarity with Palestinians.
