Syrian security forces rounded up more protest leaders in Banias on Tuesday, three days after storming the flashpoint coastal city a rights group said, as a pro-government newspaper said the army was restoring calm.
“The army controls all the neighbourhoods of Banias and arrests are still underway there and in the neighbouring villages of Baida and Marqab,” Rami Abdul Rahman of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights told AFP. Troops are hunting down “leaders of the protest movement” such as Anas al-Shaghri, Abdul Rahman said by telephone from London where the group has its base.
In the latest security force bid to crush the anti-regime protest movement, troops went house to house in Banias on Monday, rounding up thousands of men, activists said. Most have been released but more than 450 people have been detained in Banias since Saturday, when troops backed by tanks rolled into the city to crush anti-regime protests, according to the Syrian Observatory.
Security forces also rounded up regime opponents at dawn Tuesday in the key port of Latakia on the Mediterranean coast, in Damascus governorate and in Idlib, northwest of the capital, another activist said. Vans packed with people arrested by the security forces were also seen Muadamiya, a western Damascus suburb which has also raided by the army, the activist said. “Muadamiya is isolated from the outside world,” he added.
“Security controls are spreading all across Syria.” Al-Watan newspaper, which is close to the regime of President Bashar al-Assad, reported on Tuesday that “calm has been restored” to Banias by the army and that Muadamiya was also under control. “The military operation in Banias led to the dismantling of a central operations cell with computers, Thuraya satellite telephones and sophisticated cameras used by armed elements” to plunge the country into chaos, said Al-Watan. The paper reported that “elite army units took part in the Banias operation without suffering losses due to their professionalism and vast experience.”
“Navy ships and electronic-jamming units also took part in the operation to prevent satellite communications between armed groups deployed in various coastal cities,” the newspaper added. Al-Watan also said that 26 armed men had been arrested, among them the leaders of the group operating in Homs, Syria’s third-largest city. The paper also reported “the seizure of a large quantity of light and heavy weapons buried in a potato field in the Dabya neighbourhood” of Homs.
“An uneasy peace reigns in Homs and most of the armed elements have united with the army in the outskirts” of the town, the paper said. Meanwhile, Al-Watan said no gunfire was heard in Muadamiya “since the army entered the area to round up and arrest armed men terrifying the local residents.” For almost two months, near-daily protests have railed against Assad’s regime while troops and security forces have repressed the uprising brutally, especially in Banias, Homs and the southern province of Daraa.
Between 600 and 700 people have been killed and at least 8,000 arrested since the start of the protest movement in mid-March, according to rights groups.
