Syria: Syrian forces shell city of Latakia for third day
Syrian troops have kept up their assault on the coastal city of Latakia for a third day, reportedly killing three people.
Residents told Al Jazeera that the army was using heavy machine guns and tanks, and had rounded up people in a sports stadium in the city on Monday.
“As of 10GMT, the army instructed all residents in southern and southeastern Latakia to evacuate”, Al Jazeera’s Nisreen El-Shamayleh, reporting from the Jordanian side of the Jordan-Syria border, said.
According to activists, most people started fleeing to the heart of the city and there Syrian troops arrested many of them.
“They transported them on buses to the sports city stadium and there they’re being held captured, stripped of their IDs and mobile phones,” El-Shamayleh said.
She said residents called the assault the “most atrocious attack” since protests against President Bashar al-Assad’s government began five months ago.
The Syrian Revolution Co-ordinating Union, a grassroots activists’ group, said three people were killed by security forces on Monday, bringing the total killed since Saturday to at least 31 civilians.