Deal to calm Syrian city as prisoners ‘tortured’

NICOSIA – A deal has been struck for Syria’s army to enter Banias after deadly clashes in the coastal city, as several people freed after detention alleged they were tortured, a rights group said on Thursday.
The news comes after nearly a month of nationwide protests calling for greater freedom, political reform and the lifting of a draconian emergency law that have been harshly suppressed by security forces. “There was a deal on Wednesday between Syrian officials and city residents for the army to enter Banias imminently to restore order,” Rami Abdel Rahman, president of Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), told AFP by telephone. “Security agents will refrain from patrolling neighbourhoods to make arrests, and the hundreds of people arrested in Banias will be released,” he added. “Elements of armed gangs,” some of whom he said were close to security and intelligence services and “have caused unrest in order to create dissension, will be prosecuted”, he said. And “security officers who failed to stop the unrest and brought Banias to the brink of a confessional war will be punished too,” Abdel Rahman said. Banias is a Mediterranean port city home to Sunnis and Alawite Muslims, as well as Christians. Security forces have encircled Banias, 280 kilometres (175 miles) northwest of Damascus, since deadly clashes there on Sunday. Government forces killed at least four people and wounded 17 when they strafed a residential area of the town with gunfire for hours, witnesses said. And nine soldiers were later killed when their patrol was ambushed outside the town, the official SANA news agency said.
Scores of people were also wounded in the unrest and hundreds reportedly arrested in Banias and the nearby village of Baida. And the official SANA news agency said several people, including a soldier, three rebels and an undetermined number of “innocent civilians,” were killed in Banias on Tuesday. More than 5,000 women gathered on the coastal road between Tartus and Banias Wednesday to demand the release of those arrested. The London-based SOHR said in a statement that hundreds of those arrested had been released on Wednesday night and Thursday morning.