Syria: 120 Troops Killed in Ambush

The AP reports:

Armed men attacked Syrian security forces in a tense northern city on Monday, Syrian officials said, and 120 policemen and security forces were killed in a region where the army has carried out days of deadly assaults on protesters calling for the end of President Bashar Assad's rule. The government vowed to respond "decisively," setting the stage for a new crackdown.

Communications were cut to the area around Jisr al-Shughour on Monday and the details of the attack were impossible to verify, but there have been unconfirmed reports in the past by residents and activists of Syrians fighting back against security forces and even mutinous troops.

Adnan Mahmoud, the chief government spokesman, acknowledged that Syrian forces had lost control of some areas for "intermittent periods of time" and promised that the army would restore security in the area.

"We will deal strongly and decisively, and according to the law, and we will not be silent about any armed attack that targets the security of the state and its citizens," said Interior Minister Ibrahim Shaar.

The government's response set the stage for an even stronger crackdown against a popular uprising that began in mid-March and poses a potent threat to the 40-year regime of the Assad family. The possibility of a mutiny would show new cracks in a rule that has held out through weekly protests of thousands of people.

State television added the armed groups carried out a "real massacre," mutilating some bodies and throwing others in the Orontes River.

Jisr al-Shughour, about 12 miles (20 kilometers) from the Turkish border, has been the latest focus of Syria's military, whose nationwide crackdown on the revolt has left more than 1,200 Syrians dead, activists say. The town was a stronghold of the country's banned Muslim Brotherhood in the 1980s. Human rights groups said at least 42 civilians have been killed there since Saturday.

Syria's government has a history of violent retaliation against dissent, including a three-week bombing campaign against the city of Hama that crushed an uprising there in 1982. Jisr al-Shughour itself came under government shelling in 1980, when it was a stronghold of the banned Muslim Brotherhood, with a reported 70 people killed.