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Deraa, site of unprecedented protests challenging President Bashar al-Assad’s Baathist rule, residents said.
An official statement said yesterday that Assad had sacked Deraa governor Faisal Kalthoum. But a main demand of the protesters is an end to what they term repression by the secret police, headed in Deraa province by a cousin of Assad.
YouTube footage showed what purported to be the street in front of the mosque before the attack, with the sound of gunfire audible and a person inside the mosque grounds yelling: “Brother don’t shoot. This country is big enough for me and you”.
Before security forces attacked the mosque, the focal point of the Deraa protests, electricity was cut off and telephone services were severed. Cries of “Allah Akbar (God is greatest)” erupted across neighbourhoods as the shooting began.
Those killed included Ali Ghassab al-Mahamid, a doctor from a prominent Deraa family who went to the Omari mosque in the city’s old quarter to help victims of the attack, which occurred just after midnight, said the residents, declining to be named.
An official Syrian statement said Dr Mahamid, killed in an ambulance that had arrived at the scene to rescue the injured, was “assaulted by an armed gang”.
“Security forces confronted the armed gang near the Omari mosque, shooting several of its members and arresting others. A member of the security forces was killed,” the statement said.
It said the armed gang “stocked weapons and ammunition in the mosque and kidnapped children and used them as human shields”. – Reuters.