Syria troops arrest more than 300 in Damascus

I / Nicosia May 5, 2011, 14:52 IST

Syrian troops arrested more than 300 people in the town of Saqba just outside Damascus today as they pressed an ironfisted crackdown on seven weeks of unprecedented protests, a rights activist said.

"Security service agents backed by troops detained more than 300 people in Saqba, among them a number of clerics," the activist told AFP on condition of anonymity.

He said that at least one of those arrested had been wounded by security force fire before being taken away.

Troops "tore down a placard in the town's central plaza that renamed it Martyrs' Square as well as the photographs of those killed which had been attached to it," the activist said, adding that seven Saqba residents had died since the protests first erupted on March 15.

He said that more than 2,000 troops and security agents had taken part in the sweep through the town and that those detained were driven away in waiting coaches.

The new arrests came after opposition activists vowed to press on with their their "revolution" against the government of President Bashar al-Assad.

Protest leaders have called for a campaign of round-the-clock sit-ins and a day of defiance on Friday.

The Syrian human rights group Insan says that as many as 8,000 people have been listed as in custody or missing since the protests began. It says the civilian death toll now tops 607.