Hundreds held in bloody crackdown on Syrian protests

Syrian forces heaped more punishment on the residents of restive towns, detaining hundreds in raids or at checkpoints, firing on people trying to retrieve bodies of anti-government protesters and even shooting holes in rooftop water tanks in a region parched by drought, witnesses said.

In the southern city of Daraa, where Syrian army tanks and snipers killed at least 34 people in two days, a resident said security forces shot dead a man as he walked out of the main Omari mosque and shouted at them: “Enough! Enough! Enough! Stop killing your brothers!”