Syrian unrest: 'Many deaths' as army attacks Hama

[Gerald]

Syrian tanks have stormed the northern city of Hama, killing at least 45 civilians, a leading rights group says.

Residents reported heavy shelling and warned that hospitals were overflowing with the dead and wounded.

The government said that "armed groups" had burnt police stations and vandalised property. Gunmen had killed two Syrian soldiers, it added.

US officials have described the events as "full-on warfare" by the Syrian government against its own people.

The assault was a last act of utter desperation by the Syrian government, JJ Harder, press attache at the American embassy in the capital, Damascus, told the BBC.

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 the 1982 massacre which left tens of thousands dead after President Bashar al-Assad's father, Hafez, sent in troops to quell an Islamist uprising there.

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.

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 multi-pronged assault at dawn, smashing through hundreds of barricades erected by locals to reach the centre of Hama.

"[Tanks] are firing their heavy machineguns randomly and overrunning makeshift road blocks," a doctor in Hama told Reuters by phone, with machinegun fire in the background.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said medics had confirmed 45 deaths. But the toll could be as high as 100, a London-based spokesman for the group told the BBC.

Some residents said they saw bodies lying in the streets and that electricity and water supplies had been cut.

Security forces snipers were reported to have taken up positions on high buildings, the BBC's Jim Muir reports from Beirut in neighbouring Lebanon.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-14356722


Note: 31 July 2011 Last updated at 11:50 GMT