Syrian troops fire on protesters at Damascus funeral

Syrian troops fire on protesters at Damascus funeral Washington, Damascus – Adel Salama / Agencies British Daily Telegraph cited, Sunday, eyewitnesses saying Syrian security forces opened fire on 15,000 people in a funeral procession that became one of the largest Damascus protests since the uprising against President Bashar Assad began.
The funeral possession had been joined by thousands of Syrians, filling the central Damascus street. Women, some clutching the hands of their infants, followed the three green box coffins, sending their martyrs to heaven with high-pitched, ululating cries, the Telegraph said.
“Protectively encircled by rings of men, spurred by the exuberant crush of thousands clapping in unison, they unfurled Syria's revolutionary flag. The flashes of green, white and black silk were 30 ft across, covering the women protesters as they held it to the sky,” it went on.
The first gun shot that was a Syrian army officer's signal to his troops went almost unheard among the songs and uproarious chants. Seconds later, though, the air was filled with deafening and relentless gunfire and the terrified screams of the crowds, reported the Telegraph.
Live rounds hissed overhead or smacked into shop walls. The stampede of as many as 15,000 people pushed and scrambled over each other in a merciless dash for self preservation, gripped by a blind panic to get off the street.
Running down alleyways, the echo caused by the tall city apartment blocks around made it impossible to identify the direction of the gunfire. Syrian security forces and "Shabiha", much-feared regime paramilitaries, blocked the exits of the streets. Snipers fired from roof tops all across the central Damascus neighbourhood of Mezze.
Mourners had not expected this funeral march to become violent. "We had an agreement with the security forces that we would not say anything against President Bashar al Assad, and that they would not shoot," Raja, a 23 year old girl told the Telegraph.
The funeral had been for three men, shot dead by security forces at an anti-government protest the day before. It was the first time that security forces have opened fire on crowds in this central and upmarket, district of Damascus - another ugly milestone in the authorities' repression of the 11-month long protest against the Assad regime. Dozens were wounded and at least one man killed.
Four others were reported to have been killed across Syria on Saturday in what was, by recent standards, a relatively quiet day of protest and repression. But the scale of the events in Damascus, just a few miles from where Assad was at that moment telling a Chinese diplomatic envoy of a conspiracy to split the country, caught everyone by surprise.
Saturday's procession had rapidly swollen to become one of the largest anti-government protests to take place in the capital city so far, and for more than an hour it had remained peaceful.
Outside the mosque, thousands had maintained a reverent silence as an imam blessed the bodies in the open-topped wooden box coffins. Then, waving olive branches and singing under as snow fell thickly in the cold February air, the crowds that had come from restive districts across Damascus surged forward with enormous energy.
As if in a carnival, men had danced among the protesters. "Mezze, Mezze, come and join us!" they shouted to the families, watching from balconies of tall buildings around. "There is no need for fear, we will be a million martyrs in the heavens" they had cried.
But the theatrical production of the Syrian revolutionary flag had triggered the security forces' crackdown, and from that moment all those present would be pursued relentlessly.
As news of the violence was broadcast on Al Jazeera, mobile telephone signals were blocked by the thousands of people calling, desperate for news that family and friends were safe, according to the Telegraph quoting eyewitnesses.
Meanwhile, unidentified gunmen on Sunday shot dead a judge and the general attorney of the northwestern province of Idlib in Syria, the state-run SANA news agency reported. The armed group targeted the officials' car in which they were heading to work, killing Idlib's General Attorney Nidal Ghasal and Judge Mohammad Ziadeh along with their driver, according to SANA.
SANA said the prosecutor's assassination came a day after gunmen shot dead Jamal al-Bish, member of the city council of the nearby northern city of Aleppo, Syria's largest. It said he was killed outside the city, a center of support for President Bashar Assad that has been relatively quiet since the uprising began.
The Syrian government blames armed "terrorists" acting out a foreign conspiracy to destabilize the country.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights activist group said shelling continued Sunday of the Homs neighborhood of Baba Amr, which has been subjected to government forces attacks since 4 February.
One civilian was shot to death at a security checkpoint in Aleppo, and a woman was killed by indiscriminate gunfire in the embattled city of Homs, the Syrian Observatory said.
The group also said troops stormed the eastern town of Sukhna searching for fugitive members of the opposition, and that one woman was shot dead during the raids.
On Saturday, Syrian security forces fired live rounds and tear gas at thousands of people marching in a funeral procession that turned into one of the largest protests in the capital Damascus since the 11-month uprising began.
The violence broke out during a visit by a Chinese envoy, who said his country will back a solution to the crisis based on proposals already put forward by the Arab League — even though Beijing is unlikely to support the regional bloc's call for Assad to step aside.
China, along with Russia, recently supported Damascus by vetoing a UN Security Council resolution that would have condemned Assad's regime. During his visit Saturday to Syria, Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Zhai Jun urged dialogue and called on all parties to stop the violence.
At least 295 doctors have been arrested during the 11-month Syrian uprising as part of a "fierce campaign" against physicians, according to the Local Coordination Committees of Syria, a network of opposition activists.
In the past three days, security forces seized three doctors from Damascus, including two from their clinics, the LCC said Sunday.
For weeks, opposition activists have bemoaned a shortage of doctors and medical supplies as parts of Syria came undersiege.
Residents, particularly in the opposition stronghold of Homs, describe an endless nightmare of random shelling on houses, snipers perched on rooftops and wounded civilians dying long, painful deaths because they can't get the medical care needed to save their lives.
At least two people were killed at a massive funeral and protest Saturday in Damascus, the LCC said. Security forces confronted the tens of thousands of mourners and protesters with gunfire and tear gas, the group said.
The two were among 17 killed across Syria on Saturday, according to the LCC.
Meanwhile, Iranian warships have crossed the Suez Canal and docked in Syria's port city of Tartous, Iranian state media has reported.
The Mehr news agency said on Sunday that Tehran's show of support has caused "extreme worry for zionist forces".
"The strategic navy of the Islamic Republic of Iran has passed through the Suez Canal for the second time since the [1979] Islamic Revolution," Admiral Habibollah Sayari said in remarks quoted by the official IRNA news agency.
Sayari did not say how many vessels had crossed the canal, or what missions they were planning to carry out in the Mediterranean, but said the flotilla had previously docked in the Saudi port city of Jeddah.
Two Iranian ships, the destroyer Shahid Qandi and supply vessel Kharg, had docked in the Red Sea port on February 4, according to Iranian media.
Sayari said the naval deployment to the Mediterranean would carry a "message of peace" but also put on display "the might" of Iran's military.
"It will prove to the world that despite increasing enemy sanctions over the past 33 years, our manpower, obedient to the orders of the leader Imam Khamenei, continue to add to their academic and military abilities," Sayari said.
The first Iranian presence in the Mediterranean in February 2011 provoked strong reactions from Israel and the US.
During the 2011 deployment, two Iranian vessels, a destroyer and a supply ship, sailed past the coast of Israel and docked at the port of Latakia in Syria before returning to Iran via the Red Sea.
In a relevant context, the Syrian Human Rights Network denounced Iran’s support to the Syrian regime by providing it with two warships, which, according to the group, will most probably be used in the crackdown of anti-regime protests and the shelling of Syrian cities.
The Network called for prosecuting current Iranian officials and their allies in the Syrian regime and having them put to trial in the ICC, charging them of war crimes against the Syrian people, with accordance to charters of the International law.