Syrian troops kill eight at protests

SYRIAN security forces opened fire on protesters in several parts of the country yesterday, killing at least eight people and wounding scores, while masked gunmen burst into an apartment in the predominantly Kurdish north-east and shot dead one of Syria’s most prominent opposition figures.

The slaying of Mashaal Tammo, a 53-year-old former political prisoner and a spokesman for the Kurdish Future Party, was the latest in a string of targeted killings in Syria as the country slides further into disorder, seven months into the uprising against President Bashar Assad.

Tammo, killed in the city of Qamishli, was also a member of the executive committee of the newly formed Syrian National Council, a broad-based front bringing together opposition figures in an attempt to unify the fragmented dissident movement.