Syria troops fire on protesters, killing 8

By Bassem Mroue,

BEIRUT — Syrian security forces opened fire on protesters in several parts of the country Friday, killing at least eight people and wounding scores, and masked gunmen burst into an apartment in the predominantly Kurdish northeast and shot dead one of Syria’s most prominent opposition figures.

Another leading opposition figure was beaten by pro-government gunmen and hospitalized in Damascus, activists said.

The slaying of Mashaal Tammo, a 53-year-old former political prisoner and a spokesman for the Kurdish Future Party, was the latest in a string of targeted killings in Syria seven months into the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad.

Tammo, who was killed in the city of Qamishli, was also a member of the executive committee of the newly formed Syrian National Council, a broad-based front bringing together opposition figures inside and outside the country in an attempt to unify the deeply fragmented dissident movement.

Qamishli erupted in protests as thousands of people took to the streets and swarmed the hospital were Tammo was taken, many of them shouting “Azadi,” the Kurdish word for freedom, said Mustafa Osso, a Kurdish lawyer and activist from the city.

The killing could spark violent protests in the Kurdish region at a time when Syria’s security forces have their hands full trying to stamp out dissent elsewhere. Kurds make up less than 10 percent of the country’s 23 million people and have long complained of neglect and discrimination.

Assad granted citizenship in April to stateless Kurds in eastern Syria in an attempt to address some of the protesters’ grievances.

Tammo’s assassination was similar to other recent targeted killings in Syria by unknown gunmen, most recently the assassination of the son of Syria’s top Sunni cleric, who was shot dead outside his university this week.

In what is now a weekly ritual of protests and violence, security forces opened fire at Friday rallies attended by tens of thousands of marchers in the streets of several Syrian cities, towns and villages.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least four people were killed in the central city of Homs and at least three were killed in the Damascus suburb of Douma.

Osso said one person was also killed in the town of Zabadani, near the border with Lebanon.

Meanwhile, Riad Seif, a former lawmaker and a leading opposition figure, was beaten outside a mosque in the central Damascus neighborhood of Midan, according to two Syria-based activists.

— Associated Press