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Syrian president visits wounded security personnel as riot surges in Hama

02 August 2011 00:12 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad visited a number of wounded army officers and policemen Monday at the Military Tishrin Hospital in Damascus, as riot acts raged in the city of Hama, APA reports quoting SANA news agency.

The Syrian authorities said hundreds of policemen and security officers were killed and many others wounded by armed groups, which the authorities blamed for the four-month unrest in the country.

Meanwhile, an official source was quoted by SANA as saying that armed groups had "started an intensive armed attack" using live ammunition and Molotov against a number of official headquarters and police stations in the central province of Hama.

The source said the gunmen were carrying guns and roaming the city on motorcycles, adding that army units were still carrying out their missions there in eliminating barricades and barriers set up by those "saboteurs."

It added that the army was clashing with groups that used sophisticated weapons.

Since the unrest began in mid March, Hama has been one of the hottest centers of the demonstrations, with thousands of people protesting every week to demand the downfall of the leadership.

The city has a storied history of rebellion against the Syrian leadership and was a stronghold of the banned Muslim Brotherhood, which staged a bloody rebellion in 1982.