Many of those killed belonged to Assad’s minority Alawite sect, which dominates most of the senior positions in the security forces, according to Homs residents and activists.
There were also reports that members of the majority Sunni sect had been shot down in retaliatory killings by pro-government gunmen circulating in vehicles in Sunni neighborhoods and opening fire at random on civilians.
Confirming the number of deaths was impossible because Syria restricts access to foreign journalists. One of the clauses in the Arab League plan, which Syria endorsed Wednesday, calls for journalists and human rights monitors to be granted unfettered access to the country.
In Washington, Victoria Nuland, a State Department spokeswoman, denounced the killings as evidence of Assad’s “continued history of broken promises.” While applauding the Arab League’s efforts to end violence through negotiations, Nuland said, “We have not seen any evidence that the Assad regime intends to live up to the commitments that it’s made.”
A doctor contacted by telephone at the National Hospital in Homs said that more than 70 bodies had been brought to the facility over the previous 24 hours, most of the victims killed by gunshot wounds. Many appeared to have been disfigured after they were shot, with some of the corpses burned and others hacked with axes, an indicator of the ferocity of the hatred that has been building since the uprising began in March.
“Some of the bodies have been stabbed from their heads to their feet, some have had their eyes taken out and the burned bodies cannot be recognized,” the doctor said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he fears for his safety. “Gunmen who are extremists are touring the city in cars kidnapping people and killing them.”
At the same time, Syrian security forces surrounded and bombarded three key protest flash points in the city, killing at least 16 people, according to activist groups. The assault called into question the government’s commitment to the terms of the Arab League plan, under which Syria agreed to withdraw troops from residential neighborhoods.
Some activists in Homs attempted to downplay the sectarian bloodshed, accusing the Syrian regime of stealing bodies and planting them to cast into disrepute the protest movement and to justify a continued assault on the Sunni neighborhoods where the protest movement has taken hold.
But others said that the killings were real and that they signified the gravity of the divide that has opened between pro-regime members of the Alawite and Christian minorities and the Sunni majority since the uprising began.
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