Beirut: Syrian security forces opened fire on Monday in a restive central city, injuring an Olympic boxing champion and at least 20 others as President Bashar Assad's regime swept through several cities and towns to crush a pro-democracy uprising, activists said.
Nasser al-Shami, who won a bronze medal in the 2004 Olympics in Athens, was in stable condition after being hit by shotgun pellets in the city of Hama, said Rami Abdul-Rahman, the London-based director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Abdul-Rahman said he spoke to the doctor who treated the athlete.
On Monday shooting happened as Syrian troops and tanks sealed off Hama and blocked the roads leading in, an apparent attempt to crush growing dissent there and retake the city one month after security forces withdrew. About 300,000 protesters held huge protests against the regime in Hama last week, a sign the city was spiraling out of government control.
"There is some kind of a siege on the city. They are closing all roads leading to Hama," said Syria-based rights activist Mustafa Osso.
Hama, which has a history of militancy against the Assad regime, was targeted in a major government crackdown nearly three decades ago. In 1982, Assad's late father and predecessor, Hafez Assad, ordered his troops to crush a rebellion by Sunni fundamentalists, killing between 10,000 and 25,000 people, rights groups say.
Also on Monday, activists said Syrian security forces opened fire on people fleeing to neighboring Turkey, wounding a mother and her young son.
Omar Idilbi, a spokesman for the Local Coordination Committees, which track the protests in Syria, said the shots were fired in Idlib province, near the Turkish border. About 60 people made it across, but authorities detained several others, he said, citing witnesses on the ground.
Thousands of Syrians have already taken shelter in refugee camps in Turkey, a source of deep embarrassment to Damascus.
To the south, in the Damascus suburb of Dumair, armored personnel carriers rolled in after all telecommunications were cut, an activist in the area said.
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