Syrian troops renew attacks on port city

SYRIAN TROOPS yesterday continued their crackdown on the port city of Latakia and conducted mass arrests in the town of Houla, north of Homs, the country’s third city.

Opposition activists reported that snipers fired on people fleeing Latakia’s Ramel quarter, a protest hub, and said two men were killed.

Human rights organisations report that at least 31 civilians have been slain since Saturday, when the military launched its latest offensive in this area.

Sana, the official news agency, responded by denying reports of shelling and saying that troops were pursuing armed groups seeking to destabilise the country.

Two soldiers and four gunmen were said to have been killed and 41 troops wounded.

Chris Gunness, spokesman for the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the agency that cares for Palestinian refugees, told The Irish Times: “Half the 10,000 refugees living in the [Ramel] camp have left. Goodness knows where they will go, what they will do or who will look after these defenceless people. We have three confirmed dead and 12 injured.”

He said UNRWA had been functioning until the offensive in Latakia began three days ago, but services to Palestinian camps near Hama and Homs had been “extremely reduced” due to military operations in the area.

Latakia port is a key economic facility which the government of president Bashar al-Assad is not prepared to relinquish to protesters seeking to oust his regime.

Following protests in Aleppo, Syria’s chief commercial city, Mr Assad also replaced the governor of the northern province of Aleppo, Sana reported.

The Spanish daily, El País, revealed that last month that prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero had dispatched a secret mission to Damascus to offer Mr Assad asylum and propose a peaceful transition to power. The initiative was rejected.

Separately, Syria’s ambassador to the UN, Bashar al-Ja’afari, has sent a letter to the UN condemning Israel’s plan to mine and build a wall along the frontier between the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights and Syria.

Israel argues it is trying to pre- vent Syrians and Palestinians from infiltrating the Golan, which Israel annexed in 1981, while Damascus charges that Israel is building an illegal fence on land owned by Syrian Druze inhabitants of the Golan city of Majdal Shams to deny them access to relatives in Syria and to pre-empt negotiations over the fate of the Golan Heights.