Syrian unrest: Hama army raid 'kills dozens'

Amateur footage of what is believed to be the city of Hama as Syrian forces attack

Syrian security forces have stormed the city of Hama and killed more than 80 people in a bid to crush a long-running anti-government protest, reports say.

Eyewitnesses said tanks and troops moved into the city earlier and have been firing on civilians. Hospitals say they are overflowing with casualties.
The government said troops had been sent in to remove barricades and roadblocks erected by the protesters.
US officials accused the government of waging "full-on warfare" on its people.
The assault was a last act of utter desperation by the Syrian government, said JJ Harder, a US embassy spokesman in the capital, Damascus.

Analysis

Jim Muir BBC News, Beirut

In over four months of protests, no-one can predict with any confidence what the outcome will be.
The uprising won't go away but has yet to engulf the two biggest cities of Damascus and Aleppo.
The protesters face a government that is talking about comprehensive reforms, but hitting back with ferocity.
The Americans have not explicitly called for President Assad to go. The international community is not united on this in the way it was on Libya. So there is not going to be any outside intervention.
It is up to the Syrians themselves, and at this stage, nobody can say how it will go.

With this latest military operation, the authorities are sending a clear message that they will not tolerate large-scale unrest ahead of the month of Ramadan, when protests are expected to grow, says the BBC's Lina Sinjab in Damascus.

But our correspondent says the people of Hama remain defiant, with some still out in streets shouting: "We will not be killed again," a reference to a massacre in 1982 when tens of thousands were killed.
There has also been trouble in other parts of Syria on Sunday:

• Residents in the southern town of Hirak said four civilians have been killed and dozens more injured or detained
• Rights groups said more than 100 people have been arrested in the Damascus suburb of Muadhamiya
• At least seven civilians were killed in the eastern provincial capital of Deir al-Zour, where tanks are patrolling the streets, according to activists
• A powerful tribal leader, Nawaf al-Bashir, was detained by secret police in Damascus
• The government said five soldiers, including a colonel, have been killed across the country.

The recent protests - calling for widespread democratic reforms and political freedoms - show no sign of letting up despite a government crackdown that has brought international condemnation and sanctions.

Activists say more than 1,500 civilians and 350 security personnel have been killed across Syria since protests began in mid-March.
More than 12,600 people have been arrested and 3,000 others are reported missing.
Centre of protests Hama has been in a state of revolt and virtually besieged for the past month. According to activists on the ground, troops and tanks began their assault at dawn, smashing through hundreds of barricades erected by locals to reach the centre of Hama.
"[Tanks] are firing their heavy machine-guns randomly and overrunning makeshift road blocks," a doctor in Hama told Reuters by phone, with machine-gun fire in the background.

Significance of Hama

Hama - a bastion of dissidence - occupies a significant place in the history of modern Syria. In 1982, then-President Hafez al-Assad, father of Bashar, sent in troops to quell an uprising by the Sunni opposition Muslim Brotherhood. Tens of thousands were killed and the town flattened.
Hama, with a population 800,000, has seen some of the biggest protests and worst violence in Syria's 2011 uprising. It was slow to join in, but has now become one of the main focuses of the revolt, and is largely out of government control.

Rights groups, residents and hospital officials in Hama told the BBC that 88 people had been killed in Sunday's operation.

Some residents said they saw bodies lying in the streets and that electricity and water supplies had been cut.
A Hama resident told the BBC World Service that the three main hospitals had run out of blood supplies after being overwhelmed by numbers of wounded people.
"They are treating people in the halls of the hospitals. A lot of injured people [have been] taken to homes and doctors are treating them there," he said.
The Syrian government defended its actions, saying in a statement on the state news agency Sana that armed groups had "set police stations on fire, vandalised public and private properties, set roadblocks and barricades and burned tyres at the entrance of the city".
"Army units are removing the barricades and roadblocks set by the armed groups at the entrance of the city."
Most foreign media is banned from the country, making it difficult to verify reports.

Syria's anti-government protests, inspired by events in Tunisia and Egypt, first erupted in mid-March after the arrest of a group of teenagers who spray-painted a revolutionary slogan on a wall. The protests soon spread, and human rights activists and opposition groups say 1,700 people have died in the turmoil, while thousands more have been injured.

Although the arrest of the teenagers in the southern city of Deraa first prompted people to take to the streets, unrest has since spread to other areas, including Hama, Homs, Latakia, Jisr al-Shughour and Baniyas. Demonstrators are demanding greater freedom, an end to corruption, and, increasingly, the ousting of President Bashar al-Assad.

President Assad's government has responded to the protests with overwhelming military force, sending tanks and troops into at least nine towns and cities. In Deraa and Homs - where protests have persisted � amateur video footage shows tanks firing on unarmed protesters, while snipers have been seen shooting at residents venturing outside their homes.

Some of the bloodiest events have taken place in the northern town of Jisr al-Shughour. In early June, officials claimed 120 security personnel were killed by armed gangs, however protesters said the dead were shot by troops for refusing to kill demonstrators. As the military moved to take control of the town, thousands fled to neighbouring Turkey, taking refuge in camps.

Although the major cities of Damascus and Aleppo have seen pockets of unrest and some protests, it has not been widespread - due partly to a heavy security presence. There have been rallies in the capital - one with an enormous Syrian flag - in support of President Assad, who still receives the backing of many in Syria's middle class, business elite and minority groups.

The Assad family has been in power for 40 years, with Bashar al-Assad inheriting office in 2000. The president has opened up the economy, but has continued to jail critics and control the media. He is from the minority Alawite sect - an offshoot of Shia Islam � but the country's 20 million people are mainly Sunni. The biggest protests have been in Sunni-majority areas.

Although the US and EU have condemned the violence and imposed sanctions, the UN Security Council has been unable to agree on a response. Some fear the country could descend into civil war if the government collapsed, while others believe chaos in Syria � with its strategic location and its web of regional alliances - could destabilise the entire Middle East.

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