Amman: Secret police raided homes near Damascus overnight, rights campaigners said on Sunday, as popular opposition to authoritarian President Bashar Al Assad mounted following the bloodiest attacks on pro-democracy protesters.
Security forces and gunmen loyal to Al Assad killed at least 112 people in the last two days when they fired at protests demanding political freedoms and an end to corruption on Friday and on mass funerals for victims a day later.
In focus: Unrest in the Middle East
The attacks were the bloodiest, and the demonstrations were the biggest, since protests erupted in the southern city of Daraa in the strategic Hauran plain near the border with Jordan over five weeks ago.
"Bashar Al Assad, you traitor! You coward. Take your soldiers to the Golan," protesters chanted on Saturday, chiding Al Assad for turning his forces on his own people instead of liberating the Golan Heights, where the frontier with Israel has been quiet since a 1974 ceasefire.
Security operatives in plain clothes wielding assault rifles broke into homes in the suburb of Harasta just after midnight on Sunday, arresting activists in the area, known as the Ghouta, or the old garden district of the capital.
'Hollow move'
Al Assad lifted an emergency law this week, in place since his Baath Party seized power 48 years ago, in a bid to appease protesters and ease international criticism of the use of deadly force against civilians.
Opponents say the crackdown on demonstrators and the arrests that followed show the move was hollow.
Al Assad has ejected most foreign media from the country during his crackdown on protesters, so independent reports of the violence are difficult to verify.
Grisly video
Demonstrators have been using the internet to get out pictures of the violence, many of which have been explicit.
One video posted on YouTube showed a crowd marching on Friday near Abbasside square in Damascus, purportedly on Friday, chanting "the people want the overthrow of the regime", before the sound of gunfire was heard.
Demonstrators raised their hands to show that they were unarmed. The fire intensified. One youth fell, with blood spurting from his head and back. His comrades lifted him but dropped his body when the sound of bullets resumed.
In Abada village, 10 kilometres from Damascus, rights campaigners said security forces were preventing people injured in Friday's protests from reaching hospital. A cleric in contact with the town of Nawa near Daraa said residents told him security forces had fired indiscriminately.
Aided by his family and a pervasive security apparatus, Al Assad, 45, has absolute power, having ignored demands to transform the anachronistic autocratic system he inherited when he succeeded his late father, president Hafez Al Assad, in 2000.
Two MPs resign
Two Syrian MPs from the protest hub city of Daraa and its top cleric on Saturday told Al Jazeera television they resigned in protest at the bloodshed.
"I announce my resignation from parliament," Khalil Al Rifai, a deputy from the southern city said. The satellite channel said he became the second MP from Daraa to quit after Nasser Al Hariri, who earlier announced his resignation, saying he was frustrated because he could not protect his constituents.
"The authorities must respond to all the demands of the people," the Mufti of Daraa, Shaikh Rizik Abdul Rahim Aba Zeid, said. He said while he was taking part in the funeral of 10 martyrs in the nearby village of Izraa, security forces fired at them without provocation.
In a statement sent to Gulf News on the net, another human rights source stated that 112 people were killed in the Good Friday massacre including 28 from Homs Governorate, 23 from Damascus and the surrounding provinces. Syria's National Organisation for Human Rights said that the death toll from two days of violence in Syria reached 120.
Security forces fired live ammunition and tear gas Friday and Saturday as tens of thousands of people gathered across the country to protest the authoritarian regime.
Meanwhile, the state news agency Sana was still referring to the people killed in the protests as martyrs while referring to their killers as sniper gangs and infiltrators.
International condemnation of Syria mounted yesterday after Friday's crackdown.
Churches announced there would be no outdoor Easter celebrations due to safety concerns and out of respect for those who were killed.
Meanwhile, Sana quoted a high-ranking army official as saying: "The Syrian armed forces will confront anyone who will try to attack army units or soldiers."
Russia, Germany, Greece and Italy joined the chorus of criticism which includes US President Barack Obama and UN chief Ban Ki-moon, while France increased its pressure.
Russia, the first of Syria's allies to speak out, urged Damascus to accelerate its political reforms, saying Moscow was "concerned by the heightening of tensions and signs of a confrontation that is leading to the suffering of innocent people."
Call for dialogue
A Foreign Ministry statement said Russia viewed Syria as its ‘friend' but added, "We are firmly convinced that only constructive dialogue and accelerated broad-scale political, social and economic reforms outlined by the Syrian leadership can achieve stable and democratic development."
In Washington, the United States condemned "in the strongest possible terms the use of force by the Syrian government against demonstrators. This outrageous use of violence to quell protests must come to an end now," Obama said Friday.
He dismissed President Bashar Al Assad's moves as ‘not serious' and accused him of seeking Tehran's aid "in repressing Syria's citizens through the same brutal tactics that have been used by his Iranian allies."
Amnesty International said Syrian authorities "have again responded to peaceful calls for change with bullets and batons".
With additional reports from agencies
