Syria (and Beyond) LiveBlog: Yesterday's Conflict

Demonstration in Homs after dawn prayers

See also Syria Video Feature: Overnight Demonstrations Across the Country
Libya LiveBlog: Uninstalling a Regime...Phase 1 Complete

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2017 GMT: This video, allegedly taken in Hama, shows men in a tank firing into the city. Though we never see the targets they shoot at, the note on the video is that none of the soldiers appear to be taking cover, and the soldiers outside the tank appear to be relaxed, suggesting that their target was unarmed.

We cannot verify the video.

2011 GMT: There are now reports of heavy gunfire in the Zamalka suburb of Damascus.

1959 GMT: A reliable activist has this report from Inkhil, Daraa (MAP):

Heavy gunfire in an attempt to disperse a massive demonstration that set off a short time ago from the Sa'ad Mosque

Foru people have also reportedly been injured when security opened fire on protesters in the Damascus suburb of Madaya, as a march was leaving the Shamali Mosque.

1954 GMT: Protests are also reported in the Douma District of Damascus. This video shows the scene after Taraweeh prayers:

1926 GMT: We have reliable reports of large protests in Homs, with protesters marching from the from Shamsi Basha mosque, as well as the Khaldiye, Bab Amr, Bab Sbaa, Midan, Al-Hamra, Ghouta, Bayada and Bab Houd districts (in other words, most of the city).

These two impressive videos reportedly show large protests in the Qosour district of Homs despite the extremely heavy presence of security forces in the city, forces that have proven they have no qualms about killing civilians:

1912 GMT: Night protests in Sanamayn, Daraa:

Naheta, Horan province, after Taraweeh prayer:

1805 GMT: This video, uploaded today, reportedly shows men and women protesting in Dablan Street in Homs. About an hour ago, the LCCS reported "Gunfire from a security checkpoint in Bab Dreib (Homs) at Maghreb Azan time (sunset call for prayer) to intimidate the citizens":

1655 GMT: Tanks hide behind buildings and houses in Talbiseh, Syria, north of Homs (MAP) before the arrival of the UN fact finding delegation:

While the people wait for the UN delegation to arrive, gunfire breaks out and protesters retreat:

1650 GMT: The people of Jassem, Horan provicne, chant anti-regime slogans and shout "the Syrian army are traitors" at a funeral for a recently killed civilian:

1631 GMT: This is a second video of the UN Delegation arriving at Ma'arrat al Numan, Idlib province (see update at 1418 GMT):

1540 GMT: In the Midan section of Damascus, the funeral of Sayaf Ahmad Badran turns into an anti-government demonstration.

1437 GMT: SOS, a sign made to show to the UN Delegation, now drapes the body of the newest martyr in Homs. The death toll in the last 24 hours in Syria has risen to 15, including 3 people who were killed in a wave of arrests in Homs.

1431 GMT: The title of the film, reportedly taken today in Homs, claims reads "Homs, hiding the tanks before the arrival of the UN Panel." To our knowledge, the UN fact finding delegation is NOT due to return to Homs today, but it is likely that the videographer does not know this.

1418 GMT: The UN fact finding delegation enters the city of Ma'arrat Numan, Idlib PRovince:

1412 GMT: Algeria is increasing its security on the Libya border in an attempt to stop anyone from fleeing the conflict.

1200 GMT: The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights has claimed that almost 150 people have been detained by the military and security forces in the Harasta suburb of Damascus on Tuesday and Wednesday.

1130 GMT: Military and medical officials say regime airstrikes have killed 30 suspected insurgents and wounded 40 near Zinjibar in southern Yemen. Eight soldiers died in clashes in the area.

1040 GMT: Kelly McEvers of US National Public Radio reports by audio on a supervised tour of Hama in Syria:

Over the past five months, thousands and thousands of people have stood in the streets of Hama in protest. At one point, this city was a kind of free zone of anti-government sentiment.

That is no more. On the way in, we saw truckloads of soldiers and armed men. There are several checkpoints around the city where soldiers are perched behind sandbags with guns at crucial points in the city, in the squares and at banks.

Our minders tell us Hama is now safe, and life is getting back to normal. They herd us into the gorgeous, Ottoman-Islamic style municipal building for a press conference with Hama's governor, Anis al Na'en.

Na'en says protests in Hama were peaceful in the beginning. But they recently turned violent. First, he says, protesters built their barricades to keep security forces out. Then, he says, activists began attacking security forces.

This, he says, is why so much force was used in Hama. Meanwhile, anti-government groups are calling the recent military action the Ramadan massacre. This month alone, activists say, 100 peaceful protesters were killed in Hama. But given the restrictions reporters face, those reports cannot be verified.

Outside, just across the street from the municipal building, we see a group of young men who have assembled. At first we think this is part of the orchestrated tour.

But soon the group starts shouting the telltale slogan of the Arab uprisings — "the people want the fall of the regime."

Plainclothes security men surround them. A young guy walks up wearing sunglasses and cupping his hands over his mouth.

"I can't show my face because of the security. A lot of security around here. And we have a lot of arrested people in the prisons. Dozens, dozens of them," he says.

Just then, the crowd surges and runs into the street.

What happened? I ask.

Another man replies: "They arrested him, because he say what's the truth in Hama."

Desperate voices in the crowd: "Please help us, please help us." Soon after, they say that anyone who talked to us was arrested and thrown into a car.

Then our handlers round us up and direct us back to the bus. At one point, one of the handlers says, "If you don't get in the bus now, we will leave you here. Alone."

0935 GMT:Yemenis celebrate the news from Libya on Tuesday:

0555 GMT: Other claimed images of "yesterday's conflict" in Syria --- the burned bodies of what are said to be soldiers who attempted to defect.

And this video purports to be of soldiers shouting while firing, "Do you want freedom? This is freedom."

0525 GMT: As usual, we begin with a summary of the overnight challenge to the Assad regime, but there is a double meaning in the title of the LiveBlog --- the events in Libya have swept Syrian developments to the margins of much of the media.

A few stories did find a place on the pages. The New York Times belatedly picked up on Monday's dramatic scene in Homs, with security forces reportedly killing at least five protesters in Homs just after the visit of a UN delegation investigating the humanitarian situation. Al Jazeera English features the order by the UN Human Rights Council to "urgently dispatch an independent international commission of inquiry... to investigate violations of international human rights law in Syria since July 2011". The Washington Post --- taken over by news of yesterday's earthquake centred just south of the US capital --- briefly notes the visit by US Ambassador Robert Ford, after his trip earlier this summer to Hama, to the town of Jassem in the south where he met with members of the opposition.

But beyond all this, the beat of protest continued --- see our video feature on overnight demonstrations across Syria.