Things are certainly heating up in the Syrian protests and this morning, Syrian security forces lit up the day by shooting and killing six of the protesters.
From the report at The Telegraph:
Syrian security forces killed at least six people during an attack at a mosque in the southern city of Deraa, in the deadliest crackdown yet on recent protests challenging President Bashar al-Assad's rule.
Residents said that before the attack on the Omari mosque in the city's old quarter late on Tuesday, electricity was cut off in the area and telephone services were severed.
Deraa has been the focal point of recent demonstrations against the repressive rule of Assad. Cries of "Allahu Akbar (God is the greatest)" erupted across neighbourhoods in Deraa when the shooting began.
The attack brought to 10 the number of civilians killed by Syrian forces during six days of demonstrations calling for political freedoms and an end to corruption in the country of 20 million people.
The ruling Ba’ath party has banned opposition and enforced emergency laws since 1963.
Let's see here...we have a dictator in Bashar Assad, a bit like Moammar Ghaddafi in Libya. And the Syrian forces are killing civilians like Libyan forces were doing. Check. Human rights organizations are crying out that Syria is using excessive force in putting down the demonstrations like they did in Libya. Check. So, is there a no fly zone on tap for Syria? Is Barack Obama going to fire off 200 Tomahawk missiles on Damascus? LOL Not bloody likely.
Syrian forces kill mosque protesters as violence escalates
Syrian security forces killed at least six people during an attack at a mosque in the southern city of Deraa, in the deadliest crackdown yet on recent protests challenging President Bashar al-Assad's rule.
Residents said that before the attack on the Omari mosque in the city's old quarter late on Tuesday, electricity was cut off in the area and telephone services were severed.
Deraa has been the focal point of recent demonstrations against the repressive rule of Assad. Cries of "Allahu Akbar (God is the greatest)" erupted across neighbourhoods in Deraa when the shooting began.
The attack brought to 10 the number of civilians killed by Syrian forces during six days of demonstrations calling for political freedoms and an end to corruption in the country of 20 million people.
The ruling Ba’ath party has banned opposition and enforced emergency laws since 1963.
Assad's government, which is facing the biggest challenge to his rule since succeeding his father Hafez al-Assad in 2000, blamed an "armed gang" for the violence.
Those killed included Ali Ghassab al-Mahamid, a doctor from a prominent Deraa family, who went to the mosque to help victims of the attack.
"Dr Mahamid was shot by a sniper. The phone networks have been disrupted but we got through to people near the mosque on Jordanian mobile phone lines," said one resident of Deraa, which is on the border with Jordan.
A political activist, who also declined to be identified, said: "The old quarter is in total darkness and it is still difficult to know exactly what happened."
It was not immediately clear whether the protesters had any weapons.
The attack occurred a day after the UN. Office for Human Rights said the authorities "need to put an immediate halt to the excessive use of force against peaceful protesters, especially the use of live ammunition".
The protesters, who erected tents in the mosque's grounds, said earlier they were going to remain at the site until their demands were met.
The mosque's preacher, Ahmad Siasneh, told Arabiya television on Tuesday that the mosque protest was peaceful.
Protesters also gathered in the nearby town of Nawa.
On Tuesday, Vice President Farouq al-Shara said Assad was committed to "continue the path of reform and modernisation in Syria", Lebanon's al-Manar television reported.
A main demand of the protesters is an end to what they term repression by the secret police, headed in Deraa province by a cousin of Assad.
Authorities arrested a leading campaigner who had supported the protesters, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. It said Loay Hussein, a political prisoner from 1984 to 1991, was taken from his home near Damascus.
Syria has been under emergency law since the Ba’ath party took power in a 1963, banning any opposition and ushering in decades of economic retreat characterised by nationalisation.
Assad has lifted some bans on private enterprise but has ignored demands to end emergency law, curb a pervasive security apparatus, develop rule of law, free political prisoners, allow freedom of expression, and reveal the fate of tens of thousands of dissenters who disappeared in the 1980s.
He has emerged in the last four years from isolation by the West over Syria's role in Lebanon and Iraq and backing for mostly Palestinian militant groups.
Assad strengthened Syria's ties with Shi'ite Iran as he sought to improve relations with the United States and strike a peace deal with Israel to regain the occupied Golan Heights, lost in the 1967 Middle East war.
Limited economic liberalisation in the last decade has been marked by the rise of Rami Makhlouf, another cousin of Assad, as a business tycoon controlling key companies.
Makhlouf, under US sanctions for what Washington deems public corruption, has been a target of protesters' anger. They describe him as a "thief". He says he is a legitimate businessman helping to bring economic progress to Syria.
The Syrian protesters have been encouraged by recent successful demonstrations in Tunisia and Egypt.
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