“Over the past couple of weeks, we’ve seen sectarian attacks on the rise, and really ugly sectarian attacks,’’ the Obama administration official said in Washington. The longer President Bashar Assad “stays in power, what you see in Homs, you’ll see across Syria.’’
Yesterday, Syrian troops stormed a central town and a northwestern region in search of regime opponents, activists said, a day after the government agreed in principle to allow the Arab League to send observers to oversee a peace plan proposed by the 22-member bloc. At least 15 people were killed, activists said.
The attacks on the town of Shezar in the central province of Hama and on Jabal al-Zawiya near the Turkish border came as pressure mounted on Damascus to end its eight-month crackdown on antigovernment protesters. The unrest has killed more than 3,500 people since mid-March, the UN estimates.
Since the start of the uprising eight months ago, Homs has emerged as a pivot in the greatest challenge to the 11-year rule of Assad. This month, government security forces tried to retake the city, in a bloody crackdown.
Homs, Syria’s third-largest city, has a sectarian mix that mirrors the nation. The majority is Sunni Muslim, with sizable minorities of Christians and Alawites, a heterodox Muslim sect from which Assad draws much of his top leadership. Though some Alawites support the uprising, and some Sunnis still back the government, both communities have overwhelmingly gathered on opposite sides in the revolt.
In past weeks, Homs was buckling under a relentless crackdown as the government tried to reimpose control. Dozens were killed, but the US official said the Obama administration believed the government withdrew some forces in accordance with an Arab League plan to end the violence. Residents offer a different version. Several said the government had repainted tanks and armored vehicles blue and redeployed them as a police force for the same operations.
“The regime wants to say to the Arab observers that the police are confronting protesters, not the army or security men,’’ said activist Abu Hassan.
On Friday, Syria tentatively agreed to an Arab League proposal to send more than 500 monitors to oversee the faltering plan, though in a request that could undo the initiative, the secretary general of the Arab League, Nabil el-Araby, said Syria had asked for amendments.
But even as the death toll has fallen in Homs in recent days, the sectarian strife seems to have gathered a momentum that has defied the attempts of both Sunnis and Alawites to stanch it.
