Syria Protests: Assad Military Cracks Down (Graphic Video)

by NowPublic Staff | August 1, 2011 at 07:25 am

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Bloodbath in Hama as Bashir al-Assad Launches Military Crackdown across Syria

Syria's ongoing anti-government protests got even more bloody over the weekend. The Syrian military, under the command of President Bashir al-Assad, struck against protesters nationwide. The city of Hama was hit particularly hard, with at least 50 civilians killed by the military. Roughly 70 were killed nationwide.

At least five more were killed on August 1. Syria is claiming that military action was needed to suppress an armed uprising, but human right groups say otherwise.

Many were killed as the residents tried to fight back. Two men contacted in the city said the protesters refused to abandon the checkpoints, but tried to force tanks to back off. ''People grabbed whatever they could and went into the streets with bare chests, walking towards the tanks with wooden bats, steel bars or stones,'' Mr Halabi said. ''It was unbelievable that people were running towards the firing rather than away from it.''

UN Security Council Meeting on Syria

The UN Security Council will meet at 5pm ET on August 1 to decide what to do about Syria. Russia and China, which have veto power in the Security Council, have already said that they would oppose a UN action on Syria.

Meanwhile, the EU has frozen assets on several unnamed Syrian government figures, as well as imposing Europe-wide travel bans.