Refugees Say Neighbor Shoots Neighbor in Syrian Crackdown

AL QAA, Lebanon — Sunni Muslims who have fled Syria described a government crackdown that is more pervasive and more sectarian than previously understood, with civilians affiliated with President Bashar al-Assad’s minority religious sect shooting at their onetime neighbors as the military presses what many Sunnis see as a campaign to force them to flee their homes and villages in some sections of the country.

The refugees, from in and around Qusayr, a town in the province of the rebellious city of Homs, this week offered a rare witness account of the unfolding tumult in western Syria as an intensive bombardment of communities continues. They said it appeared that the government concluded that when it pushed rebels from strongholds like the Bab Amr neighborhood in Homs, opposition fighters and protesters quickly regrouped in other Sunni areas.

As a result, they said they believed that the government was not only striking at large, rebellious urban centers, but had also hit towns and villages that had not been seen as central to the year-old uprising. The refugees’ firsthand accounts painted a picture of a section of western Syria that is more thoroughly under siege — and perhaps more widely in revolt — than has previously been depicted.

“The army wants to displace people to get them away from the protests,” said Abu Munzer, 59, a Syrian Army veteran from the village of Mazaria, huddling by a wood stove in a cinder-block farmhouse with about 20 other refugees; like most people interviewed, he was afraid to give his full name. “If they die or they leave, there will be no one there to protest.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/29/world/middleeast/refugees-say-neighbor-shoots-neighbor-in-syrian-crackdown.html