If this report is accurate, it’ll mean a new low for the Syrian government, putting it more than ever guilty of war crimes:
Syrian government forces are using detained civilians as human shields, placing them on tanks in the besieged city of Homs to prevent the opposition Free Syrian Army from fighting back, an opposition activist said.
The latest tactic came as shelling rained on city’s Baba Amr neighborhood once again Sunday, residents say, marking at least the eighth straight day President Bashar al-Assad’s troops have pummeled Homs in an attempt to wipe out the opposition.
“My house is dancing. I am almost dead because of the siege,” said the opposition activist, named Omar.
Three civilians were killed in Sunday’s shelling on Baba Amr, according the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition activist group. A fourth civilian was killed by gunfire near the town of Bab Houweid, the group said.
CNN cannot independently confirm details of the fighting in Syria because the government has severely limited the access of international journalists.
Truly grotesque. But as we have seen in history with regimes like this: what goes around comes around
And it can’t be soon enough…
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.