Syria Suffers First Popular Outbreak of Violence As Furious Protests Erupt
by DEBKAfile
26 September 2002
The construction of a new ring road around Damascus was the pretext for an outbreak of popular anti-government fury in the Syrian capital this week. Until now, stringent measures by the Syrian authorities have kept any hint of the unrest from leaking out.
DEBKAfiles Middle East sources have discovered that, last week, when the
highways road-works began edging into the southeast Damascus neighborhood
of Kabas, angry residents tried to block the incursion bodily. When this was
unavailing, they began demonstrating. Last Saturday and Sunday, September 21-22,
the demonstrations escalated to violent anti-government riots that raged for
two days and were marked by violent slogans against the Assad regime. Sympathizers
streamed in from other parts of Damascus to join the protesters.
After 48 hours in which the police failed to quell the unrest, army troops were
called in. The next day, Monday, September 23rd, President Bashar Assad sent
bulldozers escorted by troops into the defiant Kabas neighborhood with orders
to continue building the road. The bulldozers also knocked down several houses.
The series of clashes ended with an unknown number of arrests and casualties.
Some reporters who covered the outbreak were arrested and every scrap of reporting
- print, photo and footage - was confiscated. Our sources add that the total
blackout clamped down on the episode is part of the governments efforts
to prevent the spread of unrest - sparked as much by popular disaffection and
economic suffering as by a local incident - to other parts of the capital.