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The Hangover News

By Mac Hackett

THE SYRIAN GOVERNMENT CONTINUED TO MURDER ITS OWN PEOPLE

Bashar al-Assad

(via)
Tanks and machine gun gangs have been busy leaving bodies on the streets of Hama, as Syria saw the Arab Spring's deadliest weekend yet.

President Bashar al-Assad, once seen as someone who wasn't as much of a cunt as his father, sent the troops in to quash protests in a city the government lost control of back in June.

The government forces went into the city just after dawn on the eve of Ramadan, breaking through barricades put up by civilians who are keen on democracy and civil rights. According to Reuters, snipers were on roofs, and tank shells rained down at a rate of about four per minute.

The upshot, at the time of writing, is around 100 people dead in Hama, while another 36 are thought to have died in other fighting across Syria. It takes Syria's unofficial Arab Spring death toll past the 1,600 mark.

Even though Assad likes cutting off neighbourhood electricity and water supplies before sending in his men, numerous videos of the attacks have emerged on YouTube.

A local activist called Omar Halabi told the Guardian that protesters were "walking towards tanks armed only with wooden bats, steel bars or stones."

Watching world leaders have supplied the usual round of condemnations, but the UN haven't decided to do anything about it yet.

Click through to watch our VBS.TV documentary about Syria's role in the Arab Spring. More stuff that happened this weekend is on page two.