Political uprising
June 18, 2011
As Syrians prepared on Saturday to bury at least 12 people fatally shot by security forces during Friday demonstrations, government troops stormed a town near the Turkish border on Saturday, where they burned houses and arrested 70 people, witnesses said
In Bdama, a town which has been providing food and supplies to several thousand Syrians who have fled the violence in frontier villages, witnesses said troops backed by tanks were burning crops and that residents were afraid to bring food to refugees.
Friday's protest was the largest since the unrest erupted as tens of thousands of people rallied across the country, defying President Bashar al-Assad's military crackdown
Rights activists said protests broke out after Friday prayers as the army pressed its campaign against northern towns.
But the worst bloodshed was in Homs, a merchant city of one million people in central Syria, where an activist group linked to protesters said 10 demonstrators were killed.
A US administration official put the death toll at around 19. The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said it could verify 10 civilian deaths.
No going back
Meanwhile, France and Germany have urged tougher EU sanctions against Syria, and the United States was considering war crimes charges against Damascus, an administration official said Friday.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy said France and Germany had agreed to lobby for stronger sanctions against Syria for "unacceptable actions and repression" of protesters.
"I believe there is a realization that force is being used against the people in a way that is not acceptable," German Chancellor Angela Merkel said after talks with Sarkozy.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton wrote in a commentary in the Arabic-language Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper that the government's crackdown would not stifle the momentum for change.
In an English translation provided by the State Department, Clinton wrote under the headline "There Is No Going Back in Syria" that the regime's "continued brutality may allow (Assad) to delay the change that is under way in Syria, it will not reverse it."
Syrian forces have killed more than 130 people and arrested over 2,000 in Jisr al-Shughour and surrounding villages over the last few days, according to the International Federation for Human Rights and the Damascus Center for Human Rights Studies.
Turkish officials say nearly 10,000 refugees have fled across the border into Turkey.
Accounts from activists and officials are difficult to confirm as the Syrian government has barred foreign journalists from the country.
Author: Sarah Harman (Reuters, AFP, dpa)
Editor: Kyle James