Syria blames unknown gunmen
Source: Agencies |
March 28, 2011, Monday
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Print Edition
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SYRIA'S government said yesterday that unknown gunmen firing from rooftops and prowling the streets of the Mediterranean city of Latakia are to blame for two days of violence that killed 12 people.
A week of political unrest in southern Syria expanded on Friday to other parts of the country, including Latakia, a scenic seaside city in the north where the streets echoed with gunfire after around 3,000 protesters held a peaceful rally to demand political freedoms.
The government's tally of the dead was the first official account of the scale of the violence there.
The state news agency SANA quoted a government official as saying gunmen fired from rooftops, broke into homes and destroyed public property. Their identities remained a mystery.
The dead included security forces and residents of the city alike as well as two members of the shadowy "armed elements," the report said. About 200 people were wounded, most of them government security personnel, it said.
"Armed elements roamed the streets, occupied the rooftops of some buildings and opened fire randomly, terrorizing people," SANA said, quoting the unidentified official.
That matched witness accounts, but left open the question of who was behind the shooting.
A week of political unrest in southern Syria expanded on Friday to other parts of the country, including Latakia, a scenic seaside city in the north where the streets echoed with gunfire after around 3,000 protesters held a peaceful rally to demand political freedoms.
The government's tally of the dead was the first official account of the scale of the violence there.
The state news agency SANA quoted a government official as saying gunmen fired from rooftops, broke into homes and destroyed public property. Their identities remained a mystery.
The dead included security forces and residents of the city alike as well as two members of the shadowy "armed elements," the report said. About 200 people were wounded, most of them government security personnel, it said.
"Armed elements roamed the streets, occupied the rooftops of some buildings and opened fire randomly, terrorizing people," SANA said, quoting the unidentified official.
That matched witness accounts, but left open the question of who was behind the shooting.
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