Syrian troops and security forces on Monday launched an assault on the central cities of Hama and Homs, where they shot dead six people, activists said, while at least two were reported killed near the Turkish border. “More than 30 military vehicles and security forces raided Hama this morning and heavy gunfire was heard in the city,” Omar Idlibi, spokesman of the Local Coordination Committees (LCC), told AFP in Nicosia by telephone. In Homs two people were killed in the Al-Khalidiyeh district and a third in Al-Bayyada, while a fourth person was shot dead at Tell Kalakh in the Homs region, Idlibi said.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights for its part said a man and his son were shot dead in the Bustan al-Diwan quarter of Homs as they rode on a motor scooter. The Observatory said 80 people were arrested in Al-Khalidiyeh, where reinforcements were sent from Hama with four armoured vehicles and seven trucks. The LCC spokesman also said that in Idlib region in the northwest a sniper killed a man who was trying to cross the border into Turkey.