IO N IPT SC R SU B
SATURDAY, MAY 21, 2011
Kuwait’s health prize goes to China, Chad
150 Fils
4
JAMADA ALTHANI 18, 1432 AH
Cairo: The centre of chaos
9
No: 15095
Thunder upset Mavs to tie series
48
Syria forces kill 34 protesters Pro-democracy demos rock country
NICOSIA: Syrian security forces yesterday killed at least 34 people, including a child, during anti-regime protests that swept the country, activists said in the latest toll from the violence. The child was among 12 people killed in the central city of Homs while 15 died in the town of Maaret Al-Naaman, near the western city of Idlib, the activists said. They said security forces also killed two people in the southern region of Daraa, epicenter of protests that have gripped Syria since March 15, one in Daraya, a suburb of Damascus, another in the port city of Latakia, two in the eastern town of Deir Ezzor and one in the central town of Hama. Meanwhile, state television blamed the violence on armed gangs who reportedly opened fire on civilians and security forces in the region of Idlib and on the outskirts of Homs, killing and wounding an unspecified number of people. Nationwide protests swept Syria yesterday in defiance of a brutal crackdown by the regime of President Bashar Al-Assad that has left more than 850 people dead, according to the United Nations and rights groups. Protests were also reported in several other towns across Syria. An activist said a demonstration was held outside a mosque in central Damascus but it was quickly dispersed by security forces. Another activist in Homs said security services stormed a local hospital and removed several wounded along with the body of a victim. In Ain Arab, a mainly Kurdish region near the northern city of Aleppo, hundreds took to the streets holding olive branches and chanting, “No to violence, yes to dialogue” and “We are not Islamists or Salafists, we want freedom,” said Radif Mustapha, head of a Kurdish rights group reached by telephone. “No one is calling for the downfall of the regime,” he said, as the demonstrators could be overheard shouting “azadi, azadi,” or freedom in Kurdish. In Banias, thousands of men, women and children marched, with many of the men bare-chested to show proof they were unarmed, Rami Abdel Rahman, of the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, told AFP. The accounts could not be independently verified as foreign journalists are prevented from travelling in the country to report on protests challenging the authoritarian regime of President Bashar Al-Assad. Crucially, both Damascus and Aleppo have so far been largely spared the unrest and it is widely believed that should massive demonstrations begin there that would mark a serious setback for the regime. In a keynote speech on Thursday on the Middle East, US President Barack Obama urged Assad to lead a political transition or “get out.” “President Assad now has a choice,” Obama said. “He can lead that transition or get out of the way. “The Syrian government must stop shooting demonstrators and allow peaceful protests.” Damascus defiantly rejected the warning. “Obama is inciting violence when he says that Assad and his regime will face challenges from the inside and will be isolated on the outside if he fails to adopt democratic reforms,” the official news agency
Max 42 Min 29
BANIAS: An image grab taken from a video posted on YouTube yesterday shows a fire truck spraying water at antiregime protesters in the northern Syrian port of Banias. — AFP SANA said. More than 850 people have been killed and thousands arrested since the protests began in mid-March, according to human rights groups and the United Nations. Assad’s government has blamed the violence on “armed terrorist gangs” backed by Islamists and foreign agitators. A confident Assad earlier this week said he believes the unrest was coming to an end and, in an unusual step, acknowledged wrongdoing by the country’s security services. The protests have posed the greatest threat to nearly five decades of rule by his Baath party, which is controlled by members of the minority Alawite community, an offshoot of Shiite Islam. The majority of Syria’s 23-million population are Sunni Muslims. Western powers initially were hesitant to criticize Assad’s regime due to Syria’s strategic importance in the region and fears of possible civil war if the regime were to collapse. The UN refugee agency said yesterday that some 1,400 Syrians had fled into neighboring Lebanon last week to escape the violence. — AFP
Adamant Bibi foils Obama initiative WASHINGTON: Showing no concrete progress, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sat alongside President Barack Obama yesterday and declared that Israel would not withdraw to the 1967 borders to help make way for an adjacent Palestinian state. Obama had called on Israel to be willing to do just that in a speech the day earlier. The Israeli leader said he would make some concessions but Israel will not go back to the lines from decades earlier because they are “indefensible.” For his part, Obama said there were differences of formulations and language but said such disputes are going to happen “between friends.” The president never mentioned the 1967 borders in his comments to reporters. — AP (See Page 12)