Army advances on Syria town as refugees flee

Syrian state TV said on Sunday a large number of people had been arrested after heavy clashes between the army and anti-government fighters in the town of Jisr al-Shughour.

Residents witnessed tanks and helicopters bombarding the town in a bid to quell unrest in the three-month-old bloody uprising.

“Two members of the armed organisations were killed, large numbers of them arrested, and lethal weapons in their possession were seized,” state television said, adding that army units had defused bombs and explosive charges planted by gunmen on the bridges and roads of the town.

Syria has banned most foreign correspondents from the country, making it difficult to verify accounts of events.

Forces commanded by President Assad‘s brother, Maher, stormed Jisr al-Shughour from the south, residents said, copying tactics used in other cities and towns to suppress street protests demanding political freedom and an end to Assad’s autocratic rule.

“They are using up to 150 tanks and armoured vehicles. Jisr al-Shughour is small and there is not even space to park all this armour. The shelling is nonstop now. Two helicopters are flying overhead and firing their machineguns,” one resident told Reuters, speaking from a hill overlooking the town.

“Most people have escaped towards Turkey. I heard that a small group of army defectors may have remained because they felt that they had to defend the honour of Jisr al-Shughour, but they must be martyrs by now,” he said.

There had been large demonstrations in the strategic town, built among hills on the road between Syria’s second city Aleppo and the main port of Latakia.

The Syrian government said “armed gangs” killed more than 120 security personnel last week in the town of 50,000, some 25 miles from the Turkish border. Refugees and rights groups said the deaths were of mutinous soldiers, shot for refusing to fire on civilians.

Refugees arriving in Turkish camps have revealed mobile phone footage of the violence with some showing the bodies of young men shot dead.

One man who crossed the border into Turkey said troops burned wheat crops in three villages near Jisr al-Shughour in a scorched-earth policy aimed at crushing the resistance of people in the area who have joined the protests against Assad’s rule.

Witnesses said more than 4,000 Syrians had crossed into Turkey and up to 10,000 had taken shelter among trees near the border since forces commanded by Maher had moved into the northwestern province of Idlib.

At the United Nations Russia and China snubbed Security Council talks called on Saturday to discuss a draft resolution condemning Syria’s crackdown.