CAIRO — Syrian troops using tanks and machine-gun fire took over a village in the country’s northwest Saturday, activists said, bringing Syria’s military closer to the Turkish border in an apparent bid to block an escape corridor to Turkey for refugees and defectors.
Rami Abdul-Rahman, of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said the takeover of the village of Bdama, a few miles from the border, will stop food and water reaching about 2,000 displaced people in the mountains on the Syrian side.
Clashes between troops and anti-government protesters in the area began about two weeks ago and have forced thousands to flee their homes. More than 10,000 Syrians are sheltering in refugee camps across the Turkish border, rights groups say.
According to a witness in Bdama reached by phone, Syrian troops with six tanks, 21 armored-personnel carriers and 15 cars flowed into the village Saturday morning, detaining people and firing heavy machine guns. By early afternoon, the village was surrounded.
Jamal Saeb, a resident, said the military had two motives for the move against Bdama: “First, to stop people from crossing the border to Turkey, and second, to stop us from receiving provisions — food, medical supplies and bread — for refugees.”
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, formerly one of Syria’s most reliable regional allies, switched his position on Damascus’ crackdown on dissent after refugees began to flood into his country in recent days. He described the government’s actions as “barbarity,” prompting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to send a senior envoy to Ankara for talks.
Turkish media also have reported that Turkey is considering setting up a buffer zone for Syrian refugees along the countries’ mutual border. Analysts and Turkish officials have dismissed the reports.
The three-month-long uprising in Syria — the most significant challenge to the Assad family’s 40-year rule — shows no signs of ending. Assad, 45, assumed power in 2000 after his father died. Many Syrians had hoped the transition would be accompanied by modernization and an easing of autocratic rule.
But Assad has instituted few reforms during his 11-year tenure, and after the deaths of more than 1,250 people in the current uprising, many now say they think he is willing to kill as many people as it takes to keep his grip on power.
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NATO said Saturday it mistakenly struck a column of Libyan rebel vehicles in an airstrike near an eastern oil town two days earlier.
The alliance has accidentally hit rebel forces before in its air campaign to protect civilians in the civil war between Moammar Khadafy’s military and the fighters trying to end his more than four decades in power.
The alliance gave no figures on casualties from Thursday’s airstrike but said it regretted “any possible loss of life or injuries caused by this unfortunate incident.”
Earlier Saturday, NATO accused Khadafy’s forces of using mosques and children’s parks as shields for his military operations and said the Libyan leader is “brutally attacking” his people.
YEMEN: Clerics call for new leadership.
More than 100 influential religious clerics and tribal leaders called for the Yemeni president’s ouster and elections to choose a new leader, adding their weight to the opposition movement seeking to end nearly 33 years of autocratic rule by Ali Abdullah Saleh.
The president is undergoing treatment in neighboring Saudi Arabia for serious burns and other injuries from a June 3 attack on his palace in the capital, Sana. His allies insist he will return to the country within days and resume his duties.
The clerics’ petition, obtained Saturday, demands elections within 60 days and says Saleh is unfit to return to his post. Denver Post wire services
