AMMAN – Syrian troops shot dead eight protesters and injured 25 in Damascus yesterday, in one of the bloodiest incidents in the capital in the seven-month-old uprising against President Bashar al-Assad, activists said.
One activist said victims had been taken to a hospital outside the city and held in isolation. “They took the bodies and the injured up the mountain to al-Zahra hospital in Tel and sealed it,” the activist said from Barzeh district where the shooting occurred.
Another 16 people were killed elsewhere, mainly in the provinces of Homs and Hama, in a continued military crackdown on the revolt against President Assad, the Local Co-ordination Committees activists’ organisation said.
Local activists said hundreds of people were also arrested in Homs yesterday as troops made house-to-house raids.
– (Reuters)