Syrian Crackdown Goes on as Arab League Observers Visit
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JOSEPH EID/AFP/Getty Images(DAMASCUS, Syria) — Syrian President Bashar al-Assad may be trying to get one over on Arab League observers sent to his country to ascertain that he’s sticking to an agreement to withdraw troops and tanks from cities where violent anti-democracy crackdowns have occurred over the past nine months.
After some of the most violent fighting of the siege, the monitors showed up in Syria’s third largest city of Homs on Tuesday in time to watch the drawdown supposedly taking place.
However, opposition activists claimed it was all a ruse on al-Assad’s part and that some of the tanks were simply placed out of view in government and school compounds.
Pro-democracy protesters who tried to stage a sit-in at the center of Homs were driven away by soldiers firing live bullets and tear gas into the crowds.
So far, the appearance of the Arab League observers has had little effect in stopping the government crackdown as the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights claimed 45 people were killed in Syria Tuesday, including 19 in the Homs region.
United Nations’ estimates put the number of dead since mid-March at over 5,000. Al-Assad’s officials allege that armed terrorists with support from abroad have mixed in with demonstrators to create havoc in his country.
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