Tanks Surround Syrian Protesters

The New York Times reports:

Syrian tanks took up positions outside the city of Hama on Saturday, where tens of thousands of people took to the streets to mourn the deaths of at least 65 protesters gunned down by security forces there the day before.

The government’s violent crackdown against a three-month-old popular uprising continued, with helicopter gunships killing 10 people in a neighboring province and residents of Hama bracing for a military assault that would be the first on the city since the government bombed it in 1982, killing at least 10,000 people.

With memories of that massacre still vivid, Hama had been slow to join the uprising against the government of President Bashar al-Assad.

But on Friday, protesters poured out of mosques and marched in record numbers toward the city’s main square, said a 27-year-old resident who gave his name as Hassan, many carrying roses to give to security forces. Before they reached the square, Al Aasy, security forces opened fire.

“They didn’t warn us with speakers or fire tear gas at us,” Hassan said. “They began shooting directly at us. They wanted to kill all of us, not frighten us back to our homes.”

As the gunshots rang out, clouds of tear gas filled the streets and throngs of protesters scrambled for cover. A few stood their ground and hurled stones at attacking security forces, according to YouTube videos provided by the Local Coordinating Committees in Syria, an activist group documenting the protest movement and the crackdown.

“God is great!” protesters shouted as they pulled one man, shot in the head, into a blood-soaked alley, the constant rattle of gunfire sounding behind them.

So many were treated for gunshot wounds at local hospitals that blood supplies ran low, residents said. Throughout the night, loudspeakers on mosques normally used for calls to prayer urged people to donate blood.

Activists warned that the number of fatalities was likely to rise as bodies were identified. Rami Abdelrahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said doctors at three hospitals had reported a total of 80 deaths.

On Saturday, funeral processions drew as many as 100,000 mourners into the streets, said Razan Zeitouneh, an activist. That pattern — protest, crackdown, mourning and protest — has been repeated hundreds of times across the Middle East since a season of revolution dawned six months ago in Tunisia, reshaping the region’s political order.