Newsvine - Syrian troops make arrests in manhunt for defector ZEINA KARAM, Associated Press

Newsvine - Syrian troops make arrests in manhunt for defector ZEINA KARAM, Associated Press

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Syrian troops make arrests in manhunt for defector
ZEINA KARAM, Associated Press

Syrian shoppers walk next to a portrait of Syrian President Bashar Assad with Arabic words read:"Congratulation for Syrian people," at the popular market of Hamidiyeh, in the old city of Damascus, Syria, on Saturday Sept. 3, 2011. Activists say Syrian security forces cracking down on a growing uprising have killed two people after storming a northern village. The security raid is part of operations to crush almost six months of demonstrations against the country's authoritarian leadership. The U.N. estimates some 2,200 Syrians have been killed since March. (AP Photo/Muzaffar Salman)

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BEIRUT (AP) — Government soldiers raided homes and made sweeping arrests Monday in a manhunt for a Syrian attorney general who defected from President Bashar Assad's regime to protest a violent government crackdown on dissent, activists said.

Soldiers demanding information about Adnan Bakkour fanned out in villages near the Turkish border and in central Syria, said Omar Idilbi, a spokesman for the activist network The Local Coordination Committees.

Bakkour's whereabouts remained unclear. The former attorney general for central Hama province appeared in two videos last week declaring his resignation, but authorities said "terrorists" had kidnapped him and forced him to make the recording.

Bakkour denied the government claim in one of the videos.

His defection appeared to be the highest-level so far in the five-month Syrian uprising.

In an audio message posted online over the past day, a man who identified himself as Bakkour said that security forces and pro-regime thugs had attacked his convoy Friday in the Maaret Hirmeh area in Idlib province, killing four people accompanying him and wounding three others. [ read more at link ]