AMMAN – Security forces have shot dead four demonstrators as people streamed out of mosques following prayers to mark the end of Ramadan and renewed protests against Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, activists and residents said.
The victims, who included a 13-year-old boy, were killed yesterday in the towns of al-Hara and Inkhil in southern Deraa province.
Demonstrations erupted elsewhere across the country, notably in Damascus suburbs, the city of Homs, 165km (100 miles to the north) and the northwestern province of Idlib, sources said.
“The people want the downfall of the president,” protesters shouted in the Damascus suburb of Harasta, where activists said dozens of soldiers defected at the weekend after refusing to shoot at the crowds.
In adjacent Saqba suburb a crowd held their shoes up in the air – an insulting gesture in the Arab world – and chanted anti-Assad slogans.
According to one activist group, troops have killed at least 551 civilians during Ramadan, the holiest period in the Islamic calendar.
Five months into the street uprising against his rule, President Assad, from Syria’s minority Alawite sect, is facing more frequent demonstrations. Protesters have been encouraged by the collapse of Muammar Gadafy in Libya, with whom Mr Assad had close ties, and rising international pressure on the ruling hierarchy.
The Obama administration froze the US assets of foreign minister Walid al-Moualem and two other Syrian officials yesterday in response to the increasingly bloody crackdown.
The treasury department also named Ali Abdul Karim Ali, Syria’s ambassador to Lebanon, where Mr Assad wields influence through the Shia Hizbullah guerrilla group, and his adviser Bouthaina Shaaban.
“We are bringing additional pressure to bear today directly on three senior Assad regime officials who are principle defenders of the regime’s activities,” said David Cohen, treasury’s under-secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence.
Mr Moualem and Mr Shaaban have appeared in the media defending military assaults on towns and cities, saying Syrian forces were pursuing “terrorists”. They are not part of President Assad’s decision-making inner circle.
Opposition figures in Syria see international pressure as crucial in stripping Mr Assad of legitimacy and in helping raise the momentum of peaceful protests. Residents and activists have reported increasing defections among Syrian troops, drawn mostly from the Sunni majority population but dominated by Alawite officers effectively under the command of the president’s younger brother Maher.
In a report published yesterday, the Syrian Revolution Co-ordinating Union grassroots activists’ group said security forces killed 551 people during Ramadan and that 130 others were killed on July 31st, the eve of Ramadan.
EU governments may impose sanctions on Syrian banks as well as energy and telecommunications companies within a week, along with a planned embargo on oil imports from the country, EU diplomats said. – (Reuters)