DAMASCUS/SANAA – Syrian forces killed at least 16 people on Wednesday, including six in an attack on a mosque in the southern city of Deraa, site of unprecedented protests challenging President Bashar al-Assad’s Baathist rule, residents said.
Assad, a close ally of Iran, key player in neighbouring Lebanon and supporter of militant groups opposed to Israel, has dismissed rising demands for fundamental reforms in Syria where his Baath Party has held a monopoly on power for 48 years.
Those killed included Ali Ghassab al-Mahamid, a doctor from a prominent Deraa family who went to the Omari mosque in the city’s old quarter to help victims of the attack, which occurred just after midnight, said the residents, declining to be named.
YouTube footage showed what purported to be the street in front of the mosque before the attack, with the sound of gunfire audible and a person inside the mosque grounds yelling: “Brother don’t shoot. This country is big enough for me and you.” Before security forces attacked the mosque, the focal point of the Deraa protests, electricity was cut off and telephone services were severed.
Cries of “Allah Akbar (God is the greatest)” erupted across neighbourhoods as the shooting began. “Syrian authorities think they can kill non-violent democratic protesters with impunity,” exiled Syrian rights defender Haitham al-Manna told BBC television from Paris. An official Syrian statement said: “Outside parties are transmitting lies about the situation in Deraa,” blaming what it described as armed gangs for the violence.
Meanwhile, Yemeni MPs on Wednesday voted in favour of a state of emergency declared by the president despite an appeal from youths at the forefront of anti-regime protests that it could lead to a new “massacre”. The opposition swiftly rejected the vote as “illegal” and fraudulent. “What they had done to pass the state of emergency is fraud and we reject it,” Abdul Razaq al-Hajri of the powerful Islamist opposition Al-Islah (Reform) party told AFP.
Parliamentary officials said more than 160 MPs out of 164 who attended a special session voted for the step, which the president announced on Friday, hours after regime loyalists gunned down 52 protesters near the university.
