Syrian gunboats kill 19 in pounding of poor districts
As the gunships blasted waterfront districts, ground troops backed by tanks and security agents stormed several neighbourhoods, with machine-gun fire and explosions heard across the city.
“We are being targeted from the ground and the sea,” said a resident of the al-Ramel district, which is also home to a Palestinian refugee camp. “The shooting is intense, many homes have been destroyed and the shabiha (thugs) have broken into shops and businesses.”
He said at least three gunboats took part in the offensive, with many people killed and wounded.
He spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.
“We cannot go out, they are raiding and breaking into people’s homes,” he said, citing reports that about a hundred people had been arrested.
The intense operation in Latakia, a key port city once known as a summer tourist draw, is part of a government crackdown on several Syrian cities meant to root out protesters demanding the ouster of president Bashar al-Assad.
The city has a potentially explosive sectarian mix. Sunnis, which are a majority in Syria, live in Latakia’s urban core, while Assad’s minority Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shi’ite Islam, populates villages on the city’s outskirts, along with small minorities of Christians, ethnic Turks and other groups.
The crackdown, which has targeted predominantly Sunni areas of the city of more than 600,000, raised concerns of sectarian bloodshed in a country that has already seen an alarming rise in sectarian tensions since the start of the uprising.
On Saturday, at least 20 tanks rolled into al-Ramel amid intense gunfire that sent many residents fleeing.
The security forces appear to be intent on crushing dissent in al-Ramel, which has seen large anti-Assad protests since the Syrian uprising in mid-March. On Friday, as many as 10,000 people took to the streets in protest.
In al-Ramel alone, at least 19 people have died in the shooting.
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