Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: "Battle" or "Massacre" in Tremseh?

UN observers move through Tremseh

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Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: Inaction is a "Licence for Further Massacres"

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2115 GMT: Syria. Back from an extended Sunday break to find EA sources reporting clashes in Damascus neighbourhoods, including Kafarsouseh, Tadamon, Qabir Atika, and the central area.

Reuters also has witness reports testifying to fighting.

The Local Coordination Committees of Syria says 72 people have been killed today, including four in the capital and 11 in the Damascus suburbs.

A funeral earlier today in the Yabroud section of Damascus:

1504 GMT: Syria. Nawaf Fares, the Syrian Ambassador to Iraq who resigned and defected earlier this week, has been giving a series of interviews to newspapers and broadcasters. Perhaps the most provocative claim is that the regime was involved in suicide bombings on government buildings, such as the twin blasts outside military intelligence offices in a Damascus suburb in May, which killed 55 people and injured another 370:

I know for certain that not a single serving intelligence official was harmed during that explosion, as the whole office had been evacuated 15 minutes beforehand," he said. "All the victims were passers by instead. All these major explosions have been have been perpetrated by al-Qaeda through cooperation with the security forces.

1423 GMT: Syria. The Brown Moses blog takes apart a claim by State media, repeated by The New York Times, of a Turkish fighter in Tremseh, the site of Thursday's mass killing.

1419 GMT: Syria. The Local Coordination Committees of Syria claims 46 people have died at the hands of security forces, including 11 killed in prison and seven defectors.

1416 GMT: Sudan. Global Voices Online reports on the arrest of women amid Friday's protests.

1354 GMT: Syria. Reuters summarises the denial by Foreign Ministry spokesman Jihad Makdisi of regime responsibility for Thursday's mass killing in Tremseh:

Government forces did not use planes, or helicopters, or tanks or artillery. The heaviest weapon used was an RPG (rocket propelled grenade.

What happened was not a massacre...what happened was a military operation. They were clashes between security forces, whose duty is to defend civilians, and heavily armed forces that don't believe in a political solution.

1350 GMT: Tunisia. The mother of Mohamed Bouazizi, the street vendor whose self-immolation was a catalyst for uprising against the Ben Ali regime, has been remanded into custody for insulting an official.

The Ministry of Justice said Manoubia Bouazizi, 60, was arrested a day on Friday after an altercation with a judge in a court in her hometown of Sidi Bouzid.

Manoubia Bouazizi had reportedly been trying to register for government benefits provided to the families of those who died in the revolution. She was transferred to a detention centre in nearby Gafsa and is due to appear before a magistrate on Monday, charged with insulting an official while he was performing his duties.

Bouazizis son Salem said, "My mother was humiliated. The authorities must learn to respect people. We're not going to let this go." He said his mother had been at the courthouse to sign documents that would allow her to receive government compensation awarded to "martyrs of the revolution".

1023 GMT: Syria. Foreign Ministry spokesman Jihad Makdisi has been explaining the mass killing in Tremseh: "What happened was not a massacre but a response by military forces against heavily armed groups."

Makdisi said "37 armed people" were killed in Tremseh but only two civilians. He denied the finding of UN monitors that the Army had used heavy weapons while claiming they had been employed by the insurgents.

Makdisi insisted the regime was "committed totally" to the proposals of UN envoy Kofi Annan but allege that other countries have been aiding and abetting armed groups.

1018 GMT: Bahrain. Claimed footage of two men in Karazakan yesterday:

1009 GMT: Egypt. As US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton meets the generals of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces today, a committee appointed by President Mohamed Morsi reports that almost 2200 people detained from 25 January 2011 to 30 June 2012 are still in prison.

Almost 12,000 people have been in military detention during and after the uprising against the Mubarak regime.

1005 GMT: Bahrain. Police beat a young man as they detain him in Sanabis on Friday night:

0955 GMT: Syria. Amid the dispute over events in Thursday's mass killing in Tremseh, Loveday Morris of The Independent of London, offers this summary:

According to activists, the attack began at dawn on Thursday, when a convoy of 25 military trucks carrying troops, accompanied by three armoured vehicles and flatbeds with heavy artillery, were spotted trundling through the nearby town of Murhada, taking the road west towards the village. Tremseh was surrounded, its electricity cut off and mobile networks jammed to be sure residents had no way of broadcasting news of the massacre that was about to take place.

The army has been engaged in a fierce offensive in the Hama countryside for weeks and many villagers are said to have fled to Tremseh, a Sunni community staunchly against the regime. Colonel Qassim Saadeddine, of the Joint Command of the Free Syrian Army (FSA), said those families included those of FSA fighters – perhaps one of the reasons the village was targeted so brutally. Others said around 30 defected soldiers lived in the village.

When the shelling began, activists say it was precise. The home of the village's only two doctors were targeted, as were those of defected soldiers. Helicopters picked off those trying to flee. "Some of the wounded gathered in the school, but then that was attacked too," said local activist Manhal.

A team of observers stationed about five kilometres away confirmed the use of heavy weaponry and helicopters in the area by regime troops. After the initial assault, pro-government militias, known as Shabiha, backed by the army, were said to have moved in, terrorising residents as they detained some men and executed others with knives or at gunpoint.

Around 35 FSA fighters tried to fend them off, according to Col Saadeddine, but, outnumbered and outgunned, soon stood down. Abu Adnan, another activist in the area, said the FSA attacked a checkpoint in an attempt to allow civilians an escape route, but failed. "It's unimaginable what's happened there," said one Hama resident whose sister fled from the village with her three children.

0755 GMT: Syria. Officials have warned that he United Nations may have to curtail humanitarian operations unless new funds are raised at donors' meeting on Monday.

UN agencies are trying to get food aid to 850,000 people --- compared to 200,000 in April --- but it has only received promises for one-fifth of a $189 million appeal.

A separate $193 million dollar appeal for Syrian refugees in neighbouring countries is also 80 percent underfunded.

0725 GMT: Bahrain. Officials have deported American filmmaker Jen Marlowe, claiming she falsified her visa application to shoot a documentary without permission.

The Information Affairs Authority stated, "Marlowe is affiliated with members of the International Solidarity Movement (ISI) organisation, some of whom had resorted to similar illegal entry tactics in February of this year."

Marlowe, who had been in the country for a week, was briefly detained and questioned before being flown to Jordan.

0630 GMT: Syria. The daily toll of death continued on Saturday, with the Local Coordination Committees in Syria reporting 75 killed by security services, including 20 in Homs Province, 14 in the Damascus suburbs, 13 in Hama Province, 13 in Idlib Province, and 12 in Deir Ez Zor Province.

However, most headlines were caught up in a debate over what happened on Thursday in Tremseh, where scores of people were slain by the Syrian army and/or militia. Martin Chulov of The Guardian, drawing on the accounts of residents, portrayed a military sweep through the town, seizing and executing defectors but also shooting civilians as they tried to flee. Neil MacFarquhar of The New York Times, writing out of Beirut and sketchier over his sources, preferred the narrative of a "battle", albeit between unequal forces.

UN observers, who entered Tremseh on Friday, have now offered a third version, closer to Chulov than MacFarquhar. Spokesperson Sausan Ghosheh said the regime attack  "appeared targeted at specific groups and houses, mainly of army defectors and activists", with a "wide range of weapons..., including artillery, mortars, and small arms".