Syrian troops raided houses in a Sunni district of the besieged port of Latakia today, arresting hundreds of people and taking them to a stadium after a four-day tank assault targeting protests against President Bashar al-Assad.
Dr Assad forces attacked al-Raml al-Filistini, named after a refugee camp built in the 1950s, at the weekend as part of a campaign to crush a five-month uprising, which has intensified against major urban centres of protest since the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan on August 1st.
Latakia is of particular significance to Dr Assad, from Syria's minority Alawite community. The president (45), a self-declared champion of the Palestinian cause, comes from a village to the southeast, where his father is buried. The Assad family, along with friends, control the city's port and its finances.
"Shelling and the sound of tank machineguns subdued today. They are bussing hundreds to the Sports City from al-Raml. People who are picked up randomly from elsewhere in Latakia are also being take there," said a resident, referring to a complex that was venue for the Mediterranean Games in the 1980s.
"Tanks are continuing to deploy, they are now in the main Thawra [revolution] street," said the resident.
"The reports about detention conditions and torture are increasingly alarming. Assad is backing himself more into a corner by using more and more violence and turning more Syrians against him," a diplomat in the Syrian capital said.
Citing witnesses in Latakia, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said a force of around 700 security personnel fanned across al-Raml, with houses being demolished in the neighbourhood "on the pretext they lacked construction permits".
"The Sports City's stadiums are serving to house refugees and prevent them from fleeing outside Latakia, and as we have seen in other cities that were assaulted, as a detention centre," Observatory Director Rami Abdelrahman told Reuters.
A Palestinian official described the military offensive in Latakia as "a crime against humanity", adding to Arab and international outrage at Dr Assad's crackdown on popular demonstrations calling for an end to his autocratic rule.
The United Nations withdrew non-essential staff from the country today. UN special co-ordinator for Lebanon Michael Williams said the 26 non-essential international staff members and their families had left Syria. Mr Williams added he was "very concerned" at the situation in Latakia.
Dr Assad had sought to improve his image internationally in the last years by emphasising economic reforms and engaging in peace talks with Israel and accepting Western overtures to lessen his isolation in return for co-operating on Lebanon and Iraq.
But he has also strengthened ties with Iran's clerical rulers and the militant Lebanese Shia guerrilla group Hezbollah, his two remaining solid allies, to the disquiet of Syria's Sunni Muslim population.
Some Palestinians in Syria have even joined the demonstrations, although Dr Assad hosts Hamas's exiled leaders and other Palestinian militant groups.
Dr Assad's crackdown has prompted a wave of international condemnation. "The bloodshed has to stop, first and foremost," Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said. "If the operations continue in Syria and the operations become a regional problem Turkey can naturally not remain indifferent."
A senior Palestinian official condemned the Latakia violence, which the United Nations said had forced between 5,000 and 10,000 Palestinians to flee the al-Raml refugee camp.
"The shelling is taking place using gunships and tanks on houses built from tin, on people who have no place to run to or even a shelter to hide in," Yasser Abed Rabbo, the West Bank-based PLO secretary general said.
"This is a crime against humanity."
The United Nations agency which cares for Palestinian refugees said on Monday four had been killed and 17 wounded.
Agencies