Today has been a weird day in the office, we were expecting heavy protests as well as the culmination in the army movement towards Jisr Al-Shughour, so there would be a lot to report on and we would end up doing a lot of lives back to London. Syria saw some of the biggest protests of the uprising so far with by some counts 14 separate protests in Damascus alone, with many more spread across the country from east to west and north to south. Many of these protests, which by and large seem to be peaceful were broken up by force. First with tear gas and rocks and then in the cases of Latakkia and Qaboun a Damascus Suburb more violently with youtube video's popping up late afternoon to show us the results, some in particularly gruesome ways. It has been a difficult day of trawling through hours of youtube footage to try to work out where protests where occurring, roughly how many at each and how the security forces where reacting. The result is that we are pretty sure that at least 22 protestors are dead, and we have seen video's of 5 or 6 of them, and many more wounded all suffering from gunshot wounds.
There have been continuing protests in Deraa which saw some of the first protests against the regime and the town has been continuously surrounded by tanks and security forces, some of which pushed into the town to try and halt protests today. Interestingly there have been further reports of defections in the city, and infighting between different elements of the security forces, this is unfortunately impossible to confirm and no video has emerged to prove anything.
The big event of the day, and the focus of protestors chants has been the town of Jisr Al-Shughour in the north east of Syria and only a few miles from the Turkish border, we have seen videos purporting to be tanks, armoured vehicles and vans of soldiers slowly surrounding the town today, and as I type Syrian State TV is reporting that they have broken into the city. During the day they have been moving town by town to 'clear terrorists and rebels who massacred security forces and to bring order back to the towns for the people'. Whether or not we believe the motives of the regime it seems to be the case that around 15,000 soldiers backed by tanks are in the area and gun battles have been fought in surrounding towns. Two narratives are again emerging, the regime one where the security forces are ambushed by insurgents and the opposition narrative that some elements of the security forces have become tired of being ordered to fire on protestors and fighting against other elements of the security forces.
The third angle is that being pushed by the Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/middle-east-live/2011/jun/10/syria-libya-middle-east-unrest-live) is that refugees fleeing across the Turkish Border have reported that the security forces were joined last saturday by 'bearded men who did not speak arabic' and it was this that caused the defections. Most sources seem to be skeptical of this as there is no firm evidence yet and stories like this often emerge from conflict zones.
This clearly then has to be a critical phase in the uprising, how long will the army be able to move up and down the country suppressing protests before mass defections occur and there simply are not enough security forces to control the large numbers of protests. This will be a crucial weekend, with heavy fighting in the north, possibly again protestors who have taken up arms and it is possible that tomorrow the death toll will dramatically rise. The regime may still survive this, but Bashar's grip on power is not as strong as it was and tens, possibly hundreds of thousands of Syrians continue to brave his crackdowns and come out to protest. The question, is then who can last the longest? The protestors or the security forces?
It has been a difficult day to cover and watch the video's coming out of Syria and I can't help but be amazed at how the protestors have continued to protest peacefully after months of brutal crackdowns and it has been hard to watch some of the video's emerging late this afternoon and this evening. The video I have embedded below shows the 'Shabiha' which are the regime's thugs which are not the army, but have been crucial in putting down protests around the country, the video shows them moving down the street in Damascus and I hope it gives you an idea of what the protestors face.
There have been continuing protests in Deraa which saw some of the first protests against the regime and the town has been continuously surrounded by tanks and security forces, some of which pushed into the town to try and halt protests today. Interestingly there have been further reports of defections in the city, and infighting between different elements of the security forces, this is unfortunately impossible to confirm and no video has emerged to prove anything.
The big event of the day, and the focus of protestors chants has been the town of Jisr Al-Shughour in the north east of Syria and only a few miles from the Turkish border, we have seen videos purporting to be tanks, armoured vehicles and vans of soldiers slowly surrounding the town today, and as I type Syrian State TV is reporting that they have broken into the city. During the day they have been moving town by town to 'clear terrorists and rebels who massacred security forces and to bring order back to the towns for the people'. Whether or not we believe the motives of the regime it seems to be the case that around 15,000 soldiers backed by tanks are in the area and gun battles have been fought in surrounding towns. Two narratives are again emerging, the regime one where the security forces are ambushed by insurgents and the opposition narrative that some elements of the security forces have become tired of being ordered to fire on protestors and fighting against other elements of the security forces.
The third angle is that being pushed by the Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/middle-east-live/2011/jun/10/syria-libya-middle-east-unrest-live) is that refugees fleeing across the Turkish Border have reported that the security forces were joined last saturday by 'bearded men who did not speak arabic' and it was this that caused the defections. Most sources seem to be skeptical of this as there is no firm evidence yet and stories like this often emerge from conflict zones.
This clearly then has to be a critical phase in the uprising, how long will the army be able to move up and down the country suppressing protests before mass defections occur and there simply are not enough security forces to control the large numbers of protests. This will be a crucial weekend, with heavy fighting in the north, possibly again protestors who have taken up arms and it is possible that tomorrow the death toll will dramatically rise. The regime may still survive this, but Bashar's grip on power is not as strong as it was and tens, possibly hundreds of thousands of Syrians continue to brave his crackdowns and come out to protest. The question, is then who can last the longest? The protestors or the security forces?
It has been a difficult day to cover and watch the video's coming out of Syria and I can't help but be amazed at how the protestors have continued to protest peacefully after months of brutal crackdowns and it has been hard to watch some of the video's emerging late this afternoon and this evening. The video I have embedded below shows the 'Shabiha' which are the regime's thugs which are not the army, but have been crucial in putting down protests around the country, the video shows them moving down the street in Damascus and I hope it gives you an idea of what the protestors face.
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