Halt Syrian butcher: Al-Sudais
By Rizwan Khatik - Sat Feb 18, 5:33 am
JEDDAH: The Imam and Khatib of Makkah’s Grand Mosque appealed to the international community in his Friday sermon to halt Syrian forces’ ruthless campaign against protesting civilians.
“It is binding on decision makers to take firm and definitive action to rescue the nation from the arrogant butcher,” said Sheikh Abdul Rahman Al-Sudais referring to Bashar Assad.
Friday sermons in Riyadh mosques also called for an end to the bloodbath of innocent civilians.
Meanwhile, thousands of Syrians rallied Friday to demand Bashar Assad’s ouster, as the embattled president’s forces unleashed their heaviest pounding yet of Homs in a brutal bid to crush dissent, monitors said.The protesters emerged from mosques after the main weekly Muslim prayers, in line with a call by Internet-based activists for a rally for a “new phase of popular resistance.”
They turned out after the UN General Assembly overwhelmingly backed an Arab League initiative calling on Assad to step aside, and ahead of a visit by a Chinese envoy pushing for peace.
In the capital, one civilian died and 12 were wounded, some critically, when they were fired on at a demonstration in Mazze neighborhood, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
At least 10,000 people demonstrated in the southern town of Dael, in the province of Daraa, cradle of the revolt inspired by the Arab Spring uprisings, said the Britain-based monitor.
Other rallies were staged in the towns of Jasem, Inkhel and Nimr Al-Hara, where security forces wounded some demonstrators when they opened fire on them.
In Homs, rockets crashed into strongholds of resistance at the rate of four a minute, according to one opposition activist who added the city was facing a humanitarian crisis.
