Syrian secret police defect, Arab deadline looms | WORLD News

Syrian secret police defect, Arab deadline looms | WORLD News

clipped from article:

At least a dozen Syrian secret police have defected from an intelligence compound, activists said, in what appeared to be the first major desertion from a service that has acted as a pillar of President Bashar al-Assad's rule.

A gunfight broke out overnight after the defectors fled the Airforce Intelligence complex in the centre of Idlib city, 280 kms northwest of Damascus, and ten people on both sides were killed or wounded, the activists said.

The Arab League has told Syrian authorities to sign an initiative to end the military crackdown on popular protests by Sunday, and has threatened to impose financial and economic sanctions if it does not sign soon.

Such deadlines have slipped repeatedly in the past. Damascus complains that its sovereignty would be compromised by the plan, which would require it to admit Arab monitors to ensure that Syria pulled troops out of cities.

"There are letters still being exchanged between the Arab League and Damascus to reach a vision for the protocol.... These communications and correspondence are being studied by Damascus," Foreign Ministry spokesman Jihad al-Makdesi said in the Syrian capital.

Assad has so far shown no sign of halting the crackdown on protests against his rule.

In Homs's Sunni district of Bab Amro on Sunday, several thousand people encircled the coffin of Khaled al-Sheikh, a 19-year-old protester who residents said was killed in random shooting by the army on the neighbourhood this week.

Abdelbassel Sarout, a 21 year football player kissed Sheikh's bloody head as the mostly young crowd of men and woman-chanted to the beat of drums: "Sleep easy we will continue the struggle... mothers weep for Syria's youth."
Advertisement

"When we film the protests to send on YouTube, most demonstrators would try to hide their face so they would not be identified by the security police," said Wael, a young activist in the city. "Khaled was always barefaced, chanting the loudest."

Security forces and militiamen loyal to Assad killed six civilians on Sunday, including a father and his two children in a drive-by shooting and a woman university teacher in Homs, activists said.

Syrian authorities say they are fighting foreign-backed "terrorist groups" trying to spark civil war who have killed some 1,100 soldiers and police since March.
[ read more at link]