'Dozens killed' in Syrian border town

[pampango]

Source: Aljazeera

Syria's army and security forces killed at least 27 civilians in a three-day tank-backed attack on the border town of Tel Kelakh to subdue pro-democracy protesters, a rights lawyer told Al Jazeera.

On Tuesday, security agents violently dispersed university students protesting against Bashar al-Assad, the president, in the country's second-largest city Aleppo, a human rights activist said.

The AP news agency quoted Mustafa Osso as saying that dozens were injured after the protesting students were attacked with batons on Tuesday. He said many of the students were chased into their dormitories and badly beaten. The university has seen several anti-regime demonstrations in the past weeks.

Rights activists say a crackdown to crush a two-month wave of protests against Assad has killed at least 700 civilians. Syrian tanks also moved into a southern city on the Hauran Plain on Tuesday after encircling it for three weeks, activists said. Soldiers fired machineguns as tanks and armoured personnel carriers entered Nawa, a city of 80,000 people 60km north of the town of Deraa, according to activists from the region.

Read more: http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/05/201151722757252901.html

[al bupp]

1. "Catastrophic" picture emerges of Syrian town

In a related report...

Carrying mattresses and bags of clothing, Syrians fleeing their homeland described a "catastrophic" scene Monday in a besieged border town that has been largely sealed off as the army tries to crush a two-month uprising.

At least eight people were killed Sunday in Talkalakh -- the most recent casualties from a government crackdown that already has killed 850 people nationwide since mid-March, according to the National Organization for Human Rights in Syria. A town of about 70,000 residents, Talkalakh has been under a military siege since last week.

"The situation in the city is catastrophic," said Ahmad, 55, who crossed the border into Lebanon overnight Monday and asked to be identified only by his first name.

"If you walk in the streets of Talkalakh you can smell the dead bodies," he said.

Later in the article, there's an assertion anonymously attributed to Syrian "officials" claiming the town was "full of Islamic extremists who wanted to form an Islamic state". If true, it's the same card Gaddafi played to justify his crackdown. Seems like all the mideast tyrants are reading from the same playbook.

Not too sure of the source for this, and the article has no by line, making one wonder who the actual writer is.

Read more at: http://www.free-syria.com/en/loadarticle.php?articleid=38949