Scores killed in Syria, as Assad forces continue to bomb Hama: activists

Syrian army and security forces killed dozens in Hama on Friday as the regime deployed more tanks in the flashpoint city and snipers were seen on the roofs of buildings, activists told Al Arabiya.

Witnesses told Al Arabiya at least 250 army tanks have besieged hama, cutting off electricity to several residential areas and leading to a shortage of milk powder and baby food. One witnesses said tanks were indiscriminately shelling the city, preventing residents attending prayers in mosques.

Thousands of people, meanwhile, staged protested in several cities around the country is support for Hama. At least five people were killed in a Friday protest near Damascus.

Friday’s protests spread from the capital, Damascus, to the southern province of Daraa and Deir el-Zour in the east. Other demonstrations were reported in Qamishli in the north to Homs in the center, activists said.

Following nightly Ramadan prayers late on Thursday, Syrian forces shot dead four protesters near Damascus and in southern Syria when they fired at demonstrations demanding the overthrow of President Bashar Al Assad, activists’ organizations said.

Abdullah Abazeid, a member for the Syrian Revolution Coordinating Committees, said three protesters were killed and at least ten wounded in the town of Nawa near Deraa, cradle of the five-month uprising against 41 years of Assad family rule.

“Demonstrations have been breaking out daily after ‘tarawih’ (prayers following the nightly breaking of fasting during the Islamic month of Ramadan) in Deraa and the surrounding towns,” Abazeid told Reuters.

The Local Coordination Committees, another activists’ organization, said another protester was killed in the Damascus suburb of Qadam when four buses full of security police surrounded a demonstration there and fired at the crowd.