By Khaled Yacoub Oweis
REUTERS
AMMAN: Syrian tanks and navy ships shelled the main Mediterranean port city of Latakia Sunday, residents and rights groups said, killing 24 people as President Bashar Assad’s forces launched an offensive by land and sea to crush protests against his rule.

Since the beginning of the fasting month of Ramadan on Aug. 1, Assad’s forces have stormed major urban centers and outlying regions where protests demanding political freedom and an end to 41 years of Assad family rule have been attracting crowds in larger numbers, human rights campaigners said.

“I can see the silhouettes of two grey vessels. They are firing their guns and the impact is landing on Al-Raml al-Filistini and Al-Shaab neighborhoods,” one witness told Reuters by phone from Latakia, where tanks and armored vehicles were deployed three months ago to crush dissent against Assad in mainly Sunni neighborhoods of the mixed city.

“This is the most intense attack on Latakia since the uprising. Anyone who sticks his head out of the window risks being shot. They want to finish off the demonstrations for good,” he said.
Each night, an average of 20,000 people have been rallying to demand Assad’s ouster in different areas across the city after Ramadan evening prayers, known as “tarawih,” the witness said.

The Syrian Revolution Coordinating Union said 32 civilians had been killed Sunday. Among them were 24 in Latakia, including a 2-year-old girl, Ola al-Jablawi. The deaths came after security forces shot dead 20 people during nationwide marches Friday.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said most of the casualties were from machineguns targeting heavily populated residential districts.

“After heavy firing, troops and shabbiha [militiamen loyal to Assad] have reached the main square in Al-Raml al-Filistini, where the crowds have been demonstrating peacefully for freedom and the downfall of the regime,” said a statement by the grassroots activists’ group.
The official state news agency denied that Latakia was hit from the sea and said two police and four unidentified armed men were killed when “order preservation forces pursued armed men who were terrorizing residents … and using machine guns and explosives from rooftops and from behind barricades.”

Nevertheless, the assaults by Syrian security forces are being met with increasing international condemnation. United Nations deputy political affairs chief Oscar Fernandez-Taranco was quoted by diplomats in New York Wednesday as saying that Assad’s forces had killed nearly 2,000 Syrian civilians since March – 188 since July 31 and 87 on Aug. 8 alone.
The 57-member Organization of Islamic Cooperation called Saturday for an immediate halt to the military campaign against protesters. U.S. President Barack Obama and Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah repeated their calls for the military assaults to stop.

Obama also spoke to British Prime Minister David Cameron and the leaders called for an immediate end to attacks by Assad’s forces, the White House said. It said Obama and Cameron would “consult on further steps in the days ahead,” which could result in more sanctions on Assad, with Washington calling on Europe and China to consider sanctions on Syria’s oil industry, a key source of hard currency for the ruling hierarchy.
Syrian authorities have expelled most independent media since the beginning of the uprising making verifying events on the ground difficult.

Residents and rights campaigners said security forces and shabbiha members continued house to house raids Sunday in the northwestern Idlib province on the border with Turkey, in the southern Hauran Plain, cradle of the uprising, Damascus suburbs and in the countryside of the city of Hama, which remains besieged by the military. Hundreds of people were arrested, adding to at least 12,000 Syrians who have been detained since the uprising and thousands of political prisoners in Syria from before, they added.

Assad, from Syria’s Alawite minority, has repeatedly said Syria is facing a foreign conspiracy to divide the country of 20 million. The authorities blame “armed terrorist groups” for the bloodshed, and say 500 police and troops have been killed.

But Assad’s statements appear to have found little resonance among the majority Sunni population of Latakia, where, similar to urban centers in the rest of the country, the ruling minority has encouraged Alawites to move from their traditional mountain regions, luring them with cheap land and jobs in the public sector and security apparatus.
The Latakia port figures highly in the Assad family domination of the economy, with Bashar Assad’s late uncle Jamil having been in virtual control of the facility, and a new generation of family members and their friends taking over.
Demonstrations against Assad during the five-month uprising have been biggest in Sunni neighborhoods of Latakia, including Salibiya in the center of the city and Al-Raml al-Filistini and Al-Shaab on the southern shore.
Troops and tanks have been besieging the two neighborhoods for months, residents say, with garbage going uncollected and electricity regularly being cut.

In March, leading Syrian opposition and civic figures, including Aref Dalila, a prominent economist from Latakia, issued a declaration denouncing sectarianism and committing to nonviolent democratic change in the wake of disturbances involving the shabbiha. Dalila, an Alawite, has warned against Latakia being used by the authorities to whip up sectarian fears among Alawites of a backlash against them if they lose power, instead of concentrating on transforming Syria into a democracy where all sects would enjoy equal treatment under a new constitution.