BEIRUT ? Syrian tanks rolled into a northwestern village and opened fire Monday, wounding at least six people in the latest military maneuver in a weekslong siege near the Turkish border that seeks to crush the country's pro-democracy uprising, activists said.
The move in Kfar Roumah village came hours after security forces shot dead two anti-regime protesters and wounded eight late Sunday in the Damascus suburb of Hajar Aswad, according to Rami Abdul-Rahman. The London-based director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights cited witnesses on the ground.
The uprising against President Bashar Assad has proved remarkably resilient, lasting nearly four months despite a deadly government crackdown that has brought international condemnation and sanctions. Assad is facing the most serious challenge to his family's four-decade ruling dynasty in Syria.
Activists say security forces have killed more than 1,400 people ? most of them unarmed protesters ? since mid-March. The regime disputes the toll, blaming "armed thugs" and foreign conspirators for the unrest.
Syria has banned nearly all foreign media and restricted media coverage, making it nearly impossible to independently verify events on the ground. But witness accounts, including interviews with refugees who have fled to neighboring countries, indicate a brutal crackdown on the protest movement.
The latest Syrian troops' action in the northwestern region of Jabal al-Zawiya appeared to be aimed at preventing residents from fleeing to Turkey, where more than 10,000 Syrians have already taken shelter in refugee camps, activists say.
The refugees have been a source of deep embarrassment to Damascus, one of the most tightly controlled regimes in the Middle East.
Syria-based rights activist Mustafa Osso said another reason for the operations in Jabal al-Zawiya was a spate of defections by army officers and intense anti-government protests in the region.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said armed and security forces detained more than 20 people in some neighborhoods of the central city of Hama early Monday. It said residents set up tires on fire and placed rocks in the streets in order to delay the movement of troops.
The arrests came after some 300,000 protesters gathered in Hama on Friday in the largest demonstration seen so far in the uprising. A day later, Assad fired Hama's governor, Ahmed Abdul-Aziz.
Syria's state-run news agency hasn't said why the governor was dismissed. But some activists said they feared Abdul-Aziz, viewed as sympathetic to the demonstrators, was dismissed to give freer rein to the security forces in the city.
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Follow Bassem Mroue at http://twitter.com/bmroue
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