24 Dead in Syria as Dissident Troops Kill General in Hama
Syrian security forces on Thursday killed at least 24 people across the country, including four leading pro-democracy activists, as dissident soldiers killed a general in the flashpoint central city of Hama, activists and a rights group said.
“The number of martyrs has risen to 24,” the Local Coordination Committees, the main activist network spurring protests on the ground, said on its Facebook page.
The LCC also said that dissident soldiers killed a general after refusing his order to fire on civilians in Hama, a hotbed of opposition against President Bashar al-Assad.
"A military intelligence general, Adel Mustafa, was killed by soldiers who refused to fire against civilians in the Bab Qebli neighborhood," said the LCC.
Likewise, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based watchdog, reported the death of a general in Hama, noting that a lieutenant was also killed in the central city. It said he was killed by deserters.
Meanwhile, in the northern city of Aleppo, demonstrations disintegrated into clashes pitting students against pro-regime militias -- locally known as shabiha -- in the university's science faculty.
Earlier on Thursday, security forces killed four leading pro-democracy activists in an ambush in northwestern Idlib province, the Observatory said.
The activists, who had gone into hiding with armed opponents of the Damascus government, were shot dead in the Zawiya hills close to the border with Turkey, the Britain-based watchdog said, without immediately releasing their names.
Elsewhere, one civilian was killed and seven others wounded during shelling of Bab Houd, a neighborhood of the flashpoint central city of Homs, said the Observatory.
In the eastern protest hub of Deir al-Zour, the body of a young man arrested after being shot during an anti-regime protest was found.
Government troops shot and wounded a soldier who tried to defect at a security checkpoint in Dael, in the restive southern province of Daraa, said the watchdog.
The U.N. says more than 5,400 people have been killed since March.
The Assad regime has waged a fierce crackdown on dissent since protests erupted in mid-March, dispatching troops and militias to protest hotbeds in a bid to silence the opposition.
Source: Agence France Presse
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