Tanks, Troops Deploy near Banias as Injured Protesters Arrested in Latakia Hospitals
Dozens of armored vehicles, including tanks and troops reinforcements, were deployed Thursday near the Syrian coastal town of Banias, an activist told Agence France Presse, contacted by telephone.
"It looks like they are preparing to attack the town, like they did in Daraa," the flashpoint town where the protest movement was born, he said.
The Syrian Observatory of Human Rights said security forces had arrested protesters who were admitted in hospitals after injuries suffered in demonstrations in Banias.
Citing the case of Maher Abdul Latif Sahiouni who was admitted to a hospital on the Jableh-Latakia road, the group said, he was arrested "in order to elicit information about other participants."
Meanwhile, between 100 and 150 pro-regime demonstrators held a peaceful protest on Thursday outside the French embassy in Damascus against France's condemnation of the crackdown.
A letter of protest addressed to French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe was delivered to the embassy together with a bouquet of flowers, an organizer, Ayman Saeed Maneh, told AFP.
"Syria will not go down on its knees," chanted the demonstrators, many of them wearing Assad T-shirts.
Source: Agence France Presse
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