Syria Snapshot: Life Under Siege in Daraa (Al Jazeera English)

Al Jazeera English writes about the Syrian military's occupation of the southern town of Daraa:

As darkness fell across it, Deraa was a city under siege.

Tanks and troops control all roads in and out. Inside the city, shops are shuttered and nobody dare walk the once bustling market streets, today transformed into the kill zone of rooftop snipers.

Trapped and terrified inside their homes, families are running low on food and drinking water, with many water tanks shot and emptied. Electricity has been cut, as have all mobile and fixed phone lines. The internet, so vital in broadcasting images of the regime's armed crackdown on peaceful protestors, is down.

Unable to crush the people who first dared rise up against him --- neither with the secret police, paid thugs or the special forces of his brother's military division --- President Bashar al-Assad has sent thousands of Syrian soldiers and their heavy weaponry into Deraa for an operation the regime wants nobody in the world to see.

"We have no electricity, no water and we couldn’t get the injured to hospitals or clinics," said Abdullah, a 26-year-old resident of Deraa who arrived in Damascus today and spoke to a journalist. "An army unit has begun to take the wounded and the corpses from the streets."

Though almost all communication channels with Deraa have been cut, including the Jordanian mobile service that reaches into the city from just across the border, Al Jazeera has gathered firsthand accounts of life inside the city from residents who just left or from eyewitnesses inside who were able to get outside the blackout area.

The picture that emerges is of a dark and deadly security arena, one driven by the actions of the secret police and their rooftop snipers, in which soldiers and protestors alike are being killed or wounded, in which cracks are emerging in the military itself, and in which is created the very chaos which the regime uses to justify its escalating crackdown.

'They dress in black'

Speaking to Al Jazeera Arabic early Wednesday evening, a Deraa resident who gave his name as Nimr al Deraawi, described a situation in which residents were unable to move for fear of sniper fire while an apparent military battle raged around them.  

"If you put your head out of the window you get a bullet in your head," said Deraawi. "Homes on Yarmouk highway have been destroyed. My home has been hit by machine gun fire. Six pharmacies have been burned down and the army has occupied all hospitals."

Leading the assault on Deraa are the elite forces of the Fourth Division of the army, commanded by President Assad's brother Maher al-Assad, who has deployed his troops in the city since the early days of the uprising, according to multiple eyewitness accounts.

"They dress in black and are large and muscular," said one resident, speaking of Maher al-Assad’s men. "They have a red stripe on one shoulder. I've seen them at night and members of my family have described them to me."

On April 8, when 25 unarmed protestors were killed, the people of Deraa directly blamed the Fourth Division for the deaths. "Hey Maher you coward, take your dogs to the Golan," the enraged crowd shouted, referring to the Israeli-occupied Syrian Golan Heights.

Syria's counter-terrorism forces may also have been deployed into the murky security arena of Deraa, according to the account given by Deraawi.

Distinguished from other forces by wearing training shoes with their military uniforms, the troops had opened fire on an unknown target, said Deraawi. He also told Al Jazeera he saw tanks opening fire and four tanks ablaze.

On Monday unconfirmed reports surfaced of Syrian military units clashing with each other in Deraa when soldiers refused to open fire. There have also been several unconfirmed reports from opposition sources of a spate of assassinations of military officials said to be sympathetic to the protesters.

Last week the state-run news agency SANA reported the deaths of General Abdo Khodr Tellawi from Homs, and his two sons and a nephew. SANA claimed the men had been killed by "armed criminal gangs […] in cold blood."

On Monday the Christian Science Monitor reported opposition activists claiming the Syrian intelligence services executed the general, his sons and nephew because they were showing signs of sympathy for the protesters.

Abdullah, who arrived in Damascus from Deraa on Wednesday, confirmed exchanges of fire were still taking place.

"The army is fighting with some armed groups because there was heavy shooting from two sides," he said. "I cannot say who the other side is, but I can say now that it is so hard for civilians."

Abdullah said the military assault on Deraa appeared to be escalating. Even as he left the border city to return to work in Damascus, Abdullah said he saw lines of tank-carrying lorries steaming south. "They are preparing for a big operation. It is not finished yet."

With the fog of war descended on this once tranquil farming community, who exactly is engaged in the battle in Deraa remains far from clear. Yet for civilians caught up in it, the consequences of stepping outside are fatal. 

"I saw a young man in the street who was shot with a single round," said a second eyewitness, speaking to a trusted source. "When his brother went out to help him he too was shot with a single round. Then a neighbour went out to try and collect the two bodies and he was shot, also with a single round."

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