“We were hoping the violence might stop after the authorities agreed to the initiative, but the scene is still unbearable,’’ said Mohammed Saleh, a resident of Homs. “The bloodshed hasn’t stopped, and the army and security forces haven’t left the streets.’’
Homs, a city in central Syria near the Lebanese border, has become one of the most violent locales in the country, with a spate of seemingly sectarian killings this week and a continuing crackdown by Syrian troops on some of the neighborhoods that have become the most defiant in the eight-month uprising.
Opposition activists said that Syrian forces killed at least 12 people in several neighborhoods in Homs, and that gunfire was heard through the morning. Other residents reported a buildup of armed forces in a city home to a contingent of army defectors who have taken up arms.
Other protests were reported in Daraa, the southern town where the uprising began, as well as the restive suburbs of Damascus and the northwestern province of Idlib, where armed clashes have occurred between the Syrian army and defectors. Activists said security forces, at times shooting in the air, forcefully broke up some of the protests.
The precise circumstances of the deaths in Homs were unclear, but residents there said little had changed in the 24 hours since Syria agreed to the Arab League’s plan for the government to remove all tanks and armored vehicles from the streets of restive cities and towns; to halt violence aimed at protesters; and to release political prisoners, estimated to be around 70,000 by the Arab League. The league said that once those steps were taken, it would initiate a dialogue with the opposition at its headquarters in Cairo, setting that for two weeks hence.
The plan set no timetable beyond that for Syria to withdraw its forces.
Any optimism over the plan was subdued. The United States and Britain say they still believe that President Bashar Assad should heed the demands of protesters and step down, and the European Union called on Syria to “provide the space and security for opposition groups.’’
