Activist: Syrians Detain 3,000 in al-Rastan in 3 Days
Syrian troops going house to house have detained more than 3,000 people in the past three days in a rebellious town that government forces recently retook in some of the worst fighting since the country's uprising began six months ago, an activist said Monday.
Also, a member of Syria's outgoing parliament dismissed a broad-based national council set up by the opposition, saying it will not be able to overthrow President Bashar Assad's regime. Khaled Abboud told The Associated Press that those who announced the formation of the council in Istanbul a day earlier are "deluding themselves."
Syrian dissidents met in Istanbul Sunday and formally established a national council designed to overthrow Assad's regime, which they accused of pushing the country to the brink of civil war.
The council appeared to be the most serious step yet to unify a deeply fragmented dissident movement.
Abboud dismissed the opposition move, saying: "It's a dream that will never come true."
In the rebellious central town of al-Rastan, which the government retook on Saturday, an activist told The AP by telephone that security forces have detained more than 3,000 residents since Saturday.
He said the detainees were being held at a cement factory, as well as some schools and the Sports Club, a massive four-story compound.
"Ten of my relatives have been detained," said the activist, who asked that he be identified by his first name, Hassan. He said was he speaking from hiding in al-Rastan.
"The situation in the town is miserable," he said, adding that the town of some 70,000 people was heavily bombed for five days starting Tuesday when the army launched an offensive.
Syrian activists say the fighting in al-Rastan pitted the Syrian military against hundreds of army defectors who sided with the anti-regime protesters, who are calling for Assad's ouster.
The clashes in Rastan were among the worst the country has seen since the uprising began in mid-March.
Hassan said that as of Sunday, the regime brought into al-Rastan thousands of workers to clean up the streets and rebuild damaged areas in what appeared to be an attempt to cover the damage caused by intense shelling.
He added that food stuffs also were brought into the town.
Syria's state-media said troops took control of al-Rastan after hunting down "armed terrorists" holed up inside. But the fighting there highlighted the increasingly militarized nature of an uprising started months ago by peaceful protesters.
The uprising began in mid-March amid a wave of anti-government protests in the Arab world that have so far toppled autocrats in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya. Assad has reacted with deadly force that the U.N. estimates has left some 2,700 people dead.
Also Monday, funeral processions were held for the 21-year-old son of Syria's top Sunni Muslim cleric who was killed a day earlier in an ambush in a restive northern area.
The cleric, Grand Mufti Ahmed Badreddine Hassoun, who is considered a close supporter of Assad's regime, told hundreds of people attending the funeral at a mosque in the northern city of Aleppo that the country's opposition should stop working against Syria from abroad.
"Come and say whatever you want here and if anyone rejects I will be with you in the opposition," said Hassoun, his voice shaking, in an apparent reference to steps taken by Assad to allow the formation of political parties and promises of free elections. "You want freedom, you want justice then come here and build it with us in Syria."
Hassoun, who has echoed Syria's regime claims that the unrest in the country is the result of a foreign conspiracy, blamed fatwas or religious edicts by clerics living abroad for the death of his son. He did not name the clerics or say where they were based.
"My brothers who were misguided and carried arms, you should have assassinated me because some clerics issued such fatwas. Why did you kill a young man who did nothing and harmed no one," Hassoun, holding back his tears, said in a sermon aired on Syrian TV stations.