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Five gunmen killed in clashes with government forces in central Syria: report

02 December 2011 00:38 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Syria’s specialized authorities on Thursday killed five "terrorists" and arrested 35 others in central Hama province, as the government sacked the director general of the Syrian customs, APA reports quoting Xinhua.

Syria’s government forces conducted a very delicate operation in Hama that led to the killing and arresting of "terrorist gunmen " in addition to the seizure of a large amount of weapons and ammunition.

The confiscated weapons included 27 Kalashnikov rifles, nine pump actions, medium machine guns, grenades and remote-controlled explosive devices in addition to sophisticated satellite communication devices.

The report said that the government forces had managed to free a civilian, who was arrested a couple of days ago.

Hama, a city of 800,000 with a history of dissent, had fallen out of government control in June. But Syrian army entered the city on July 31 to fight "terrorist groups" and withdrew on Aug. 7.

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.

In a separate event, the Syrian government sacked Mustafa Buka’ ai, head of the Syrian customs, and put instead Majdi Hakima, who ran the customs department in central Homs province.

There was no immediate comment from the government on the reason behind sacking Buka’ai.

While this drags on, the European Union (EU) and the United States have slapped Syria with a new raft of sanctions, following other sanctions imposed by the Arab League (AL) and Turkey during this week.

These new EU sanctions are related to the energy, financial, banking and trade sectors and include the listing of additional individuals and entities "that are involved in the violence or directly supporting the regime," said a conclusion at a meeting of EU foreign ministers.

The U.S. new batch of sanctions added two high-ranking Syrians and two more government-controlled entities for sanctions.

Muhammad Makhluf, the maternal uncle of Syrian President Bashar Assad, and Aus Aslan, a general in the Syrian military and commander within Syria’s 4th Armored Division, were accused of offering support for the embattled president.