The Syrian army shot dead at least five people in a western town near the Lebanese border Thursday and stormed a northwestern town near Turkey's border, activists said.
Tanks took over a main square in the besieged Syrian city of Hama and electricity and telephone phone lines were cut off Wednesday as President Bashar Assad's regime showed no signs of halting the intense military assault against an uprising now in its fifth month, activists said.
Syrian security forces swept through neighborhoods in a restive central city on Thursday, firing machine guns and pulling people from their homes in a series of arrests, activists and residents said.
The discovery of three corpses with their eyes gouged out set off a sectarian killing spree that left 30 people dead in a chilling sign that the Syrian revolt against President Bashar Assad is enflaming long-simmering religious tensions.
Syrian troops raided homes and made sweeping arrests in the central city of Hama on Monday, wounding at least 20 people before sealing off the city just days after about 300,000 protesters there held the largest demonstration since the uprising against President Bashar Assad erupted in mid-March, activists said.
Three months into Syria's bloody political showdown, some 200 critics of President Bashar Assad's regime prepared to convene in an unprecedented opposition gathering Monday in Damascus after another deadly weekend for anti-government protesters.
Syrian forces opened fire at funerals for slain political protesters, a human rights activist said Sunday, leaving two more people dead as the government of President Bashar Assad tries to subdue weeks of demonstrations against the leader.
Syrian forces shelled a town in the country's restive north and opened fire on scattered protests nationwide, killing at least 32 people on Friday, activists said. Hundreds of Syrians streamed across the border into Turkey, trying to escape the violence.
Syrian government troops backed by tanks attacked three central towns Sunday in an attempt to stop round-the-clock protests there against President Bashar Assad's regime. At least five people were killed and scores were wounded, activists and a rights group said.
