Syrian forces attacked two villages near Baniyas - Washington Post

Cairo - Two Syrian villages from the North near the entrance of Mediterranean port of Baniyas under attack fiercely by Government forces Tuesday, according to witnesses and activists, as the Government stepped up Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to remove a protest movement apparently building.

Graphic Tweetchart: Middle East and North Africa in the turmoil

An unknown number of demonstrators were killed and several others wounded, according to people reached by telephone in Syria. The State-run Syrian Arab News Agency also reported that seven of the nine soldiers killed in the fighting in streets near Baniyas Sunday were buried Tuesday.

During this time, the New York - based Human Rights Watch issued a report accusing the security forces of the Syria to flout international law in shooting medical staff or otherwise preventing them from tending to wounded Friday during some of the most intense clashes of agitation for long months.

The White House again joined a choir growing international criticism of the Government in Damascus, issuing a statement called the growing use of the force "scandalous", condemns for blocking security forces would have been a medical aid to the wounded.

Tuesday, Syrian troops, security forces and armed pro-government thugs bouclé Baida and Ejnad villages in the middle of the morning and went home to rounding up people, said Haitham al-Maleh, 80, lawyer and defender of the rights of man in Damascus.

Several hundred people, most of these young people have been detained at single Baida, according to a person affiliated with a local University who spoke the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals. Food deliveries have been arrested, and electrical and cell phone service was cut, the person added.

Some prisoners were bound, beaten and forced to say, "with blood and soul, we save you, Bashar!", said the activist of the University.

When other villagers marched in the streets to protest against the repression of military and security forces opened fire on them, said Maleh, counsel.

Malath Aumran, 26, an activist who contacted Baida residents on the Internet despite the intermittent service, said that ambulances had been blocked to retrieve the wounded and sometimes targeted by gunfire and that some wounded avoided local hospitals for fear of being arrested by security forces.

In a sign that some members of the security apparatus are sympathetic to anti-government demonstrators, Aumran also cited reports that some soldiers had disobeyed orders to shoot protesters and that they themselves were killed.

But it was impossible to verify if its account and others because the Syria expelled most of the country's media organizations and communication and services are often lower.

Through interviews with 20 Syrians, Human Rights Watch said it had documented that Government forces targeted ambulances and doctors in bloody clashes Friday, the Duma, Dara and Harasta. The Group also stated that it had documented the deaths of 28 people this day here.

The group, which says it has compiled lists of the dead and confirmed by interviewing the families of the victims, said that the uprising has cost at least 170 lives. Other groups feel that the number of dead has reached 200.

kunklef@washpost.com

Mansour is corresponding special.

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